Writing for engineering reflection

How a course shapes a student 

A course is always taught to a student to give them knowledge about a specific subject, usually associated with their major. But how much change can a course do, how much can it truly affect a student. Well writing for engineering is a course taken by stem, generally engineering majors. Stem students learn everything about code, physics, and math, but these disciplines cannot prepare a student for things such as resumes, interviews, and other real world career related tasks. Writing for engineering is here to build a student into a presentable, business ready adult. Build a student into someone who is able to apply, interview, and present for jobs. Everything from cover letters, to grammar fixing, to socialization skills. It makes engineers, more than just robots who can solve complex problems.

Our first major assignment was to write up a mock job application. We searched and found a real job posting online that we would consider applying for one day, and we wrote up a cover letter, resume, and copied the job description. I believe this assignment was crucial, not because we will need it post graduation, but right now. As a freshman, I along with many students I know are desperately applying for internships, and entry level college aid jobs. This workshop/assignment we did, not only helped us get our foot into the door, but pointed out the mistakes we were making, and how to fix those mistakes in order to have higher chances of success applying.

Second up, was a lab report. Everyone had the same concept, write a lab report on dice rolling probability. This project not only had us improve our paper writing capabilities, but also allowed us to think like engineers on probability of dice. A combination of the best of both worlds. I have written many lab reports before, but this one allowed me to discover something very important as an upcoming engineer. Always, always think outside the box, no matter how much confidence you have. Certain things can always be different than they seem, especially in math and logic. In math, there are always unlimited possibilities.

Other smaller assignments we as a class completed were an introducing ourselves discussion board. This wasn’t anything major, but it certainly helped my nervous self feel a little more comfortable, and social with the students in one of my classes. It is good to have someone I can reach out to when questions about assignments arise. Or even just someone to talk to throughout the day. Having at least one interaction with a student can make all the change.

To conclude things, the reason why writing for engineering is different when compared to all the other courses is, it builds us in a way where other courses wont. Citations, drafting, and trial and error experiments aren’t something we can or will learn elsewhere, especially at the college level. The use of technology helps us feel a little more comfortable when entering other classes, so its important for a change in flow in the life of a student.