My writing has further improved throughout this semester. When I first started the Writing for Engineering course, the first impression that I had was that the course was going to be about research into different engineering fields or what one needs to know regarding the writing process involved in Engineering. I was surprised to find out how similar the course was to English 101 but the topic was more in-depth with the field of engineering. This semester was full of projects and assignments that pushed me out of my comfort zone. It challenged not only my critical thinking and writing skills but also doing independent research in looking up scholarly articles and how to interpret those articles within my writing. Every assignment given taught us what we will expect to know and write in any engineering-related field that we are going to do. Assignments like POP, Technical Description, and Project Proposal are all assignments that prepare us for the time when we enter the engineering industry. Overall this semester has further revealed my lack of knowledge and skills, as I continue to improve myself by following the Course Learning Outcome and the advice of the teacher. 

My writing began with the assignment “POP,” which is knowing how to write a cover letter and a resume tailored to a specific person or program. Most of this writing deeply involved my personal opinion, what skills I have, and how I would be a good fit for my chosen internship program. The internship that I chose was the NJ Transit (Intern: Equipment Design & Engineering). Writing a resume wasn’t much of a challenge, but the hard part was writing the cover letter. It was through this assignment that I learned to “Negotiate my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation.” I first researched the criteria that the internship was looking for and then wrote out my experience. I specifically chose highlights that will showcase why I’m fit for the position and how I will meet their expectations. For example, what the internship is looking for is someone who has an understanding of the mechanical processes, works in a self-directed manner, interacts with the team, possesses good math, writing, and presentation skills, and has a good knowledge of Microsoft Office such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. I then answer my qualifications by talking about my skills like creating websites, usage of SOLIDWORKS, and my experience working outside as a team in an unfamiliar environment. After that, I finished off by re-emphasizing my intention to be a part of this opportunity and left behind my contact info. Throughout this cover letter, I tried to be as formal as possible and not to be rude in any way, for I want to show my sincerity to my audience and draw their attention.

After the POP assignment came the Technical Description. The idea behind this assignment was to write a description of an existing product of our choice. An advertisement, textbook, manual script, etc are all examples of a technical description. For the product I’m writing about, I chose a telescope; the type astronomers use to observe the stars. 

The hardest part of this assignment was Another learning outcome I was able to achieve was “Practice using various library resources, online databases, and the internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects”. Research is a necessary skill that any engineer and scientist would need to know for any topic, and this skill is involved throughout all the assignments this semester, especially with assignments 2 and 3.