Writing is not hard. That is what I used to believe, but coming into college, it has really warped my understanding of writing. In high school, I used to be really good at writing, so I did not take the difficulty of classes too seriously. Formatting has been the hardest thing I have ever done, and learning APA made it 100 times harder. My goal is to be an engineer, so I have to learn it no matter what, but it was really difficult. All my life, I have been using MLA Format, and it was my favorite format. All my other classes use MLA, so if I had more time, I would do my best to learn the APA format and try to make it the main Format I use for my writing. The way you learn something is to be constantly doing it over and over again until it becomes second nature. It is what I am doing to learn Japanese. Because I only used it for this class, I was unfamiliar with it and made many mistakes, especially with the in-text citations. My favorite piece in this was the technical description, but it was also my least favorite piece. It is so cool that we can describe something like a controller and learn so much about it. My paper was on the RTX 4090 Ti, and how much I learned about it was so amazing. I learned a lot about Nvidia’s history and what makes the 4090 Ti so much better than the 3090 Ti other than just believing that because it was newer, it means it was better. I learned how other consumers also felt about it, how cool the design was, and how all the parts worked. It was amazing, but if I were to do it over again, I would choose something else. It was really hard to do, and there were not enough pieces to write a proper technical description. I am too much of a stubborn person to switch topics mid-paper, so I stuck with it and did not do too well the first time. I went back to it and added many things to it to make it better, but it was only a little better. The technical description was the hardest paper I have ever written, but it was good that I got to experience it because mistakes make you stronger.

Something I do well is grammar. I love being grammatically correct. I read a lot, and I find grammatical mistakes in things and fix them, but there are times to be grammatically incorrect in conveying an emphasis a message, and I use it well. Another thing is paraphrasing. I am really good at paraphrasing things in general. This has to do with the fact that I have to explain a lot of difficult concepts to little kids, and the bigger words are really hard for them to understand. Paraphrasing a sentence comes naturally to me now. I still need to work on my formatting and citations because I struggle to understand that in APA format. I just need to practice it a lot more. Another thing is that I have an expansive vernacular, but I write like a high schooler to make my papers easy to read. It is a big problem that I do not believe I can fix because when I use “big words,” I think I sound egotistical.  I want my work to say that I still tried my best, even if it is not the best ever written. If you are going to do anything, do it right or at least try to do it right. It does not have to be perfect, but you should be able to look at something and say yeah, I did the best I could. I hope my writing conveys this message.

This course really was a massive blow to my pride. I believed I would do so well in it. As mentioned before, I was a good writer in high school, but this class humbled me. During this class, I learned how to write in APA format, which is a very big skill for me because of what I want to do in the future: engineering.  For engineering, we have to use the APA format for writing, which is really tough because, as I mentioned before, I prefer MLA format. But now I understand the gist and believe I can do it correctly. I had a problem with the in-text citations, but my friend Felix helped me with that, and now I can do them correctly. 

As for my habits, I like to write what I am feeling, and if I do not like it, I just reword it until I do. I can get the creative juices flowing when I come up with my best ideas.  It is how I am currently writing this reflection. My big problem is that I do not have someone proofread my paper. Reading my paper sounds fine because I understand the message I want to convey, but when others do it, it makes no sense. This happened with the technical description, and I needed my professor to tell me what I did wrong. I will have to make my friends or classmates read my papers in the future to ensure that I do not repeat the same mistakes. 

I will be honest: I did not do my best in this course. I struggled really hard with certain things, especially the formatting aspect of APA. I spent most of my time doing research. We learned about the CCNY databases, which have been the most useful thing I have learned. I collaborated with my classmates to help each other, but I just started that recently, so it has not been that helpful. I have also gotten help from my group mates, who have taught me a lot and are really patient with me. I never got the chance to meet one-on-one with my professor, but I had a professor from my last semester help me out with my technical description. Lastly, I have never been to the Writing Center, but I will if I ever need help.