In my first semester at City College, I wrote about my theory of writing and how it has changed throughout the years. Writing has confused me for years. How can one learn to write? I was always told to keep writing until I got understood it better, but as I kept writing I continued to receive poor grades. I always wondered why it was so difficult to learn how to write. Math, Science, and History was easy to understand, but writing essays just seem to be the downfall of me.
For years I’ve thought that writing was useless and that it was unnecessary to address an issue in seven pages when it can be done in one or two. I guess all this anger towards writing came from the poor grades I got in both middle school and high school. I was beginning to wonder if I should take a different approach to writing before I began. Usually, I always kept writing what was on my mind about the issue I was writing about and then I would fix it and make it into an essay. Sometimes what was on mind didn’t stretch across pages and would end up becoming an essay too short to deserve a good grade on. I don’t think writing should be graded on how long of an essay is because a short-detailed essay is way better than a long essay that is continuously repetitive with its ideas. This is something I believed throughout my four years in high school. I heard other students getting high grades on essays when all they did was write random things to make their essay longer. It’s weird to explain, but what I’m trying to say is that the teachers in high school just weren’t good and I’m certain that’s why I criticize my own writing because always I’m unsure on how I’ll do when my essay is graded.
Well, I’m in college now and I’m still writing the same way as I did in high school, but I’m not being penalized for my work. Long essays are great, but I think the real definition of writing is all based around the creativity behind it. Like I said before, I can write a well-detailed paragraph and it would be better than most of the essays my classmates wrote in high school, and I think that should be acknowledged when looking at another person’s writing.
This spring semester, I took the Writing for Engineering course and my writing has changed significantly compared to what I did in my previous semester. The writing for engineering course also changed my thoughts and beliefs about writing which, in return, influenced my writing. I wrote my theory of writing during the winter semester to explain how much my writing changed, but only a few months later, I find myself rethinking the concept of writing and what it means to me right now.
The difference between the writing for engineering course and the English class I took last semester is the aspect of engineering. My English class last semester didn’t focus on engineering and the importance of writing in that field as much as the writing for engineering class did. It taught me the different ways of writing that are very useful and creative in the engineering field. Before I took this class, I never thought I would ever need to write essays if I was going to major in engineering. I would always ask myself, “When am I ever going to use this?” This course answered that question and showed me the creative aspect of writing.
The first assignment for the writing for engineering course was a letter of introduction. This assignment emphasized the formal aspect of writing that was familiar to me, but it was still a learning experience because I had never written an extensive letter like I did before. Writing through letters is considered the most formal way of writing and requires a specific way of addressing people. Throughout the semester, I learned that I needed to write as if I was in a workplace in order to write like an engineer. I’d say that this course is the best course to prepare any aspiring engineer for their future in engineering. Not many people would think of the numerous ways of writing that an engineer needs learn because engineering is something that screams “writing.” It’s more of a math and science major, even math and science require extensive writing such as lab reports and presentations.
All the assignments this semester proved how important writing is in engineering and it changed my thoughts on the concept of writing. Writing is needed in almost anything which proves its importance in life. In engineering, writing is a way to spread your math and science to the public and for people who don’t nearly understand math or science as much as engineers. I think the writing for engineering class helped in showing how useful writing is in engineering and it showed its importance for the future of engineering students.
