Reflection Essay

I believe my writing has improved throughout the semester. I have always been insecure about
my writing, but after completing several professional assignments, I feel that I can write well for
a future career. I have always been told that my writing is excellent, so the development is less
about tangible improvement and more about my own belief in my writing. I often find it difficult
to fill up an entire page from scratch, so doing the planning sheets for each assignment gave me
more structure to work with. I also think that my ability to develop professional writing
improved, as I have never done this type of writing before aside from a longform essay last
semester. By doing assignments such as the memo and white paper, I was able to see how my
writing might translate into a real-world professional environment and how I can adapt it to my
potential career as a political analyst. I think doing more simple professional assignments first
and moving into more elaborate ones was a good strategy for me to see how different people in a
work environment might be involved, depending on if one is in an assistant position or a charge
position.
My goal for this course was to understand what it would be like to develop projects and
communicate in a professional environment. I believe I have met this goal, especially due to the
peer feedback we received and the variety of assignments we did. I liked how we got the chance
to see other people’s work while receiving feedback on our own, as this allowed us to see how
others would approach the same assignment and see what they did that we could do better. By
doing assignments ranging from emails and memos to instructions packets, we were able to go
through the process of completing essential workplace documents that will help carry us through
our careers.
I am most proud of my white paper assignment. I think I was able to structure my material
effectively and that I wrote in a very professional manner. I have not done this type of
assignment before, so it was satisfying to see it all come together and look good. I put the most
work into this assignment, and I think it showed. My points were well-researched and developed.
I also think this white paper would be a compelling piece in the real-world environment to show
the dangers and possible solutions for deforestation. If I could add an assignment to this course, I
would probably add some type of workplace evaluation document. A lot of places take staff input
into account when coming up with new methods and potential improvements for increased hiring
and employee satisfaction. I think that doing this kind of assignment would prepare students for
how to strike a respectful tone for the workplace while also teaching them to use constructive
criticism. If I could edit an assignment in this course, it would likely be the engagement project. I
think that having to do a full assignment with AR for the first time was a bit complicated,
especially seeing how the text was not very functional with the program. I would probably make
the text a less essential part of the project and focus on audio content entirely instead.