As my English for Engineering class comes to an end, I have realized how much I have transformed as a writer. In this essay, I am going to explain what I realized my strengths and weaknesses are as a writer and how they have manifested themselves throughout the semester. I was skeptical at first coming into this class knowing that English takes formidable work and dedication, but I am very proud of the progress I have made. We completed a great deal of work throughout the semester, from technical description, lab reports, and an engineering project.

Throughout the quarter I found myself improving as a writer, my skills and confidence have developed into more clarity and thought, something I have always wanted to be, as a result of a well-constructed class that led to a superb educational experience. To begin, I am going to write about my weaknesses and how they transitioned into strengths. First, at the beginning of the class I had a hard time remembering how to write in a formal way because the last time I had to write a formal essay assignment was 6 years ago. But after the first essay, I started to get on board and refreshed my memory. One of my weaknesses was that I put my opinion in the essay when it’s not asked for. In my technical description essay, I learned that I only have to write facts about the product I’m describing, use reliable resources and that’s it. Another thing, I noticed is that I use words like many and a lot which are not suitable for formal writing because they’re not specific. Another weakness was my time management and drafting skills but that evolved when I started using the strategies we learned in class.

The most significant learning objective for me was enhancing strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment. Although at times it was a bit annoying to write an essay this way, I realized that when it came to the days before submitting these major assignments I was much more at ease. Normally, I would be freaking out making a schedule of how much time I have and how much to spend writing each section of an essay and the night before almost always resulted in me staying up super late to complete the assignment. As a result of breaking major paper assignments into its components I completely avoided this dilemma.  In writing this way we were also able to get feedback in order to improve our work.

What also helped my writing was that after the first draft was completed, we would discuss it with our peers in lecture. This allowed for me to really understand how to better my work rather than being bombarded with instructions all at once and by taking care of details that I might have forgotten. I will admit that I have always been the person who submits work without proofreading it and this class completely got rid of that tendency in me. I always thought I just wrote well the first time around so there was no point in wasting my time rereading something I wrote. However, by constantly having to complete sections of a paper and revise them in class I realized just how flawed my writing is. I now see the importance of rereading your work in order to better my work.

In my opinion, the engineering proposal was the hardest assignment. It was a task that took a significant amount of time and effort but was truly an excellent learning experience. I found it intriguing how much the original essaycan improve or modify over time; moreover, how different ideas flow through your brain each second. The revision of my essays taught me to be more organized and take care of small mistakes.

However, there are areas that I still not progress on. For example, organizing i my thoughts into the essay because sometimes it’s scattered and that confuses the reader. Finding resources was also one of the areas I struggled in especially in the lab report essay. I’m still struggling in that area but it’s nothing compared to when I first started this class.

In summary, I had an enjoyable time in my English class. I pushed myself as diligently as I could and learned much more than I thought I would. I learned different skills every assignment and evolved my own skills and ideas.

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