I Didn’t Expect This Class To Build My Creativity: My Experience in ENGL 21007- Writing for Engineers

+–Heyy its ya girll Daisia<33–+

QUICK QUESTION!! How would you feel about waking up at 5AM in the morning to catch a train from Queens all the way to HARLEM? You wouldn’t like it right? Cause that’s what I did for almost four weeks straight!

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed that class but I didn’t enjoy waking up that early, I’ll tell ya that. But here’s my take on what I truly thought this course was gonna be about. The first thing I did was search up “writing for engineers” and then it showed a bunch of videos about how engineers write their reports. In these videos, I just saw how they need to write in capital letters, learn Greek letters, and how to write clearly so people who are reading their reports can understand. MY BAD THOUGH, cause holyyyy this class was not what I expected. As a writer, I would say I’m decent. I wouldn’t call myself the best writer in the world but good enough for people to understand the point I’m tryna get across. But by the end of this course, I was able to develop my creativity more, explore and dissect different writing styles and read various genres. Professor Borcoman taught us ways to structure our assignments and dig deeper into different meanings from the readings we were assigned. Overall, this allowed me to think more critically about my writing style and how to communicate my ideas to a large audience.

Early Writing

Starting at the very first week of class, we were introduced to the 8-minute freewrite at the beginning of each class. I was soo tired that at times I could not think of what to write early in the morning, so I would just write down some bs or what I was feeling that morning if I had no clue what to write. The freewrites were important because it prepared me to get used to the constant writing without worrying about the now and over time I learned to just write down the first thing that comes to mind, then organize later for my papers. The next lesson we had was the chair description activity. At first we all thought it was odd, because the professor just grabbed an old burgundy dusty chair and put it on top of his desk and told us to describe this chair as if we were talking to someone who can’t see it.

After jotting down every detail we saw fit we dispersed in groups of three and discussed our findings. The end result is that most of us left out details about the chair, because we assumed that people would automatically get what we were saying. I forgot about the plastic box at the bottom but described almost everything about the chair even where it was placed. This activity showed that simple details MATTER!! When writing you need to be very detailed so specific audiences can fully understand what you are conveying. Both lessons taught me to take into account that my audience and clarity matters. I realized that when writing it’s not about what I wanna say to my audience, but how clearly they will understand it.

Technical Description 

NOW THIS WAS BANGERRRRR!!!! I really enjoyed this assignment, out of all the assignments it was my favorite. We had to pick an item or process, describe its components, and how it works. I was wondering what I would choose but thennnn I remember why don’t I just do a project that I already had in mind??!!! BIG BRAINN DUHHHH. So my technical description was DMCareerIQ: Administrative Assistant Training Simulator, that was my little baby right there since I already had plans on making it a game but I barely have any coding experience. I learned that this type of writing needed a different structure than any other type of writing styles. I had to make sure my essay was clear, kind of like a step-by-step tutorial so my audience could understand the process I was trying to describe. This assignment also made me organize my ideas and think about how clear it will be for the audience. My creativity definitely flourished when writing this assignment, I used and understood digital platforms like Canva and Google DOCS to structure my process clearly. And I was able to take the professor’s feedback and fix what was missing in my writing by fully explaining what my technical description was. Both the technical description and the engineering proposal allowed me to create a game concept for administrative assistants and a webpage database for a school safety system.

Research Writing

Now this is not the professors fault, I think it was the school’s curriculum, but the Memo and Lab Report was horrid out of all the assignments. Though helpful, it was a fairly huge amount of workload in a short period of time and for the memo we had to work in groups which was difficult at first since the communication in my group was lacking. I learned how to research, use data, and evidence in our writing. In my memo and lab report, I learned how to locate and assess reliable sources via the CCNY School Library Database and news outlets. I also made sure the sources were credible and pertinent. I also learned to explain my sources and connect them to my ideas in order to support my argument. I was also able to cite sources, which made my writing more professional and plausible.

Engineering Proposal

The engineering proposal was the final project that tied everything from the previous assignments. I definitely was proud of my creative side. Creating the database for the school safety system was difficult at first but I executed it well in the end. I was required to think about a real-world engineering problem (the school safety problem in NYC) and create a solution in a professional manner (a reporting and counseling system). I had to think about my audience because my writing was intended for people who would evaluate or decipher the overall solution. Research was used to support my engineering proposal and explain why my solution was valid, and would help reinforce the problem mentioned in my proposal.

Conclusion

In conclusion, although the start time is disgusttttingggg, I enjoyed this class and this professor was helpful with the short time that was given. My first impressions were that my writing had to change drastically in order to sound polished for this class. But during this class, I realized that there are various ways of writing in order to fit different circumstances. I learned to change my tone but not lose my passion or my voice. Each assignment has prepared me to write professionally, ESPECIALLY for lab reports and proposals. I was able to make connections with my classmates after class too and participate in class discussions, which helped with my social anxiety. I want to thank Professor Borcoman for teaching us, it didn’t feel like any old lecture, we were actually learning something and applied it to our assignments, maybe future situations.