Arseleena Ali

English for Engineers

Mr.Bubrow

Reflective Essay:

Overview of the Course

This spring semester has been a great one, as I have done a variety of assignments over the course. Every assignment has taught me multiple different skills and opened me up to different aspects of society which require socializing. We completed a total of 5 major assignments and all of them helped me improve a different social skill that would serve me right in the future for my confidence level and networking skills.  

The first assignment of the course was the writing of the intro paragraph. Here were able to give out an elevator pitch. I was successfully able to tell the class a little bit about myself. Before writing this I read the textbook to give myself an idea of what to include in this intro assignment. Some of the things I included were by name, my major, and my experience. Knowing this information served to be very helpful for the next resume assignment. This assignment was a good way to break the ice of the classroom and get comfortable.

The resume and cover letter assignment were one of the earliest assignments of the semester and it was very helpful as well. It gave the class a little bit of an insight into how one should apply to jobs and internships. The whole process of going online to find an opportunity to apply is not as easy as it sounds. This assignment not only gave me a first-hand experience of applying to certain jobs but also provided me with the opportunity to learn about the experience of possibly getting rejected for the job applied for. Through reading the textbook about how to build a resume and how to create a cover letter, I was able to learn about the many different components needed to gauge the targeted audience. One such skill that helped me with this assignment was a concept known as A & P, which stands for audience and purpose. It is essential to look at the job description and requirements in order to initiate the resume building process because the purpose of submitting the resume is to satisfy the targeted population enough for them to accept you. Overall, the point is to submit a resume and cover letter that gears your credentials in a way that fulfils the job’s requirements.

The next major assignment in the course was the interview report. This assignment was no less useful than the resume and cover letter assignment. I feel like this task built upon the previous very nicely. After learning what is needed to apply to a job, the course made a very smooth transition to this interview report. I was able to interview an acquaintance for a job that I didn’t even know existed, without going to an engineering school. I was able to gain more confidence and fluency in talking to people that I don’t know too well, which will help me navigate my way past that intimidating barrier. I was able to not only learn about her job but also about other jobs in the same field that she worked in and this helped me explore a wider scope of what else there is to work as. At the end, when all the information was obtained, I was successfully able to synthesize the interview into a lab report, which is another valuable skill to have because it gets your ideas organized in a more formal manner. I was able to grasp onto the ideas of a career that I didn’t even know existed in addition to gaining an extra person within my networking chain. I was successfully able to establish a relationship with her, which will help me expand my networks even more because the more people I know, the better.

The next assignment was a lab report on dice probability. This lab report was a little different from the ones before, as it was more research-based and was more inclusive of the use of technology. The use of CCNY’s online library was crucial for this assignment because articles, newspapers, and/or other credible passages were needed to provide evidence for or against the question being investigated. This part was the most difficult because there were very minimal articles on this topic; nonetheless, I found passages that backed up my hypothesis and provided validity. Drafting and editing was part of the process to finalize the last copy, which included APA style citations and images/tables for visual references. This assignment improved my writing and internet researching skills as well as my use of Microsoft Word.

The group proposal was an interesting assignment for me because it was a different type of assignment for me. Although I have worked in several group collaborations in my past educational career, I’ve never worked on an actual proposal, where the budget, action plan, and meeting were set with real people regarding the matter. I learned about the importance and value that a proposal holds and love that I gained an excellent experience on the process of how it is created and followed through on. For this task, we used several aspects of the internet like the CCNY online database, google sheets, google slides, google docs, and google forms. I realized that the lab report on dice probability was a preparatory assignment for this group proposal. Additionally, a newer aspect that was added to this proposal was the inclusion of an appendix alongside the normal citations for any images and information taken from the internet.  This group proposal assignment almost made it seem like my group and I were actual engineers and were going to achieve our proposal’s end goal.  

Last but not least, the class was wrapped up by a technical description assignment. This assignment was more focused and revolved around our specific field of engineering. I am pursuing the civil engineering field and I chose to write about one of the major aspects of civil engineering: bridges. Just like any other assignment in the course which required the use of the internet and CCNY’s online library, I cited the information in APA style and used several different features on google docs to stylize the layout of the description. This assignment had a presentation component to it as well. Through my own presentation, I was able to build a little bit more confidence in presenting and choosing which information to display and which not to. On the other hand, through the presentations of my peers, I was able to learn what types of objects and concepts their field of engineering studies. This final wrap up assignment served as a good learning experience.

Overall, this was one of my favourite courses of the semester. The difficulty level and workload was moderate. I felt like the flow of the course was very smooth and I enjoyed this class very much since it had a very comfortable and relaxed environment. I learned a different skill from each and every assignment in the course and those skills will definitely be used in the long run for when I pursue my career.