It has finally arrived. The end of my first semester here, at the prestigious Florida State University (FSU), has arrived. During my first semester here at FSU, I have been taking ENC 1101 and in this class, we had to complete three major projects. In project one, we spoke about three artifacts that we have composed in the past and reflect on our identity as a composer. In project two, we had to interview someone that had the same major, future profession, or personal life about their composing, and then reflect on what we learned during the interview. Finally, in project three we identified our composing goals and composed something that would help us get a step closer to reaching that goal. I have had to revise my three projects a lot during the process because of my diction and sentence structure. I went to the Reading and Writing Center here at FSU, a numerous amount of times, in order to turn in my assignments as best as I could. I remember going every day for a straight week just to make sure I was writing at a college level. The things I mostly got feedback for was how I structured my sentences and where I put them, but other than that it was not too much. Due to my frequent visits to the Reading and Writing Center, I rarely got constructive criticism from Ms. Kelly herself. The only time I really got constructive criticism from Ms. Kelly was in project one because I did not elaborate enough on myself as a composer in my response for my academic artifact. Once I got this feedback however, I went straight to work and fixed it by adding sentences that explained my process as a composer. I fixed this because a 94 did not feel good and I wanted a 100, but I got a 98 instead. The most valuable thing I learned in this class was that revising is the key to getting good grades. In high school, I would always wait until the very last second to start on my work, so I would never have time to do any revision and my grades would be ultimately be affected because of this bad habit. During this 6-week transition into college, I have been trying my best to get my work done at least 3 days in advanced in order to have time to relax and then get back to it a day later or so to revise any mistakes. I do not think I can take anything from this class and apply it to other future contexts, except the composing goals we had to think about. If I were to ever compose something for my own personal enjoyment, and not for a class, I am pretty sure I would try to work on my composing goals which were to just stop procrastinating (which I am already working on) and try to not be as lazy as I was back in high school. My ideas about writing have changed tremendously because ENC 1101 showed me that writing can be fun, and it also showed me that I doubt myself a lot when it comes to my writing. The project I believe I did the best on was the second one where we had to interview someone and make an article about it. I interviewed my CARE ambassador Jahhel Thernelan and it was a great learning experience because I got to find out about the types composing he has done at Florida State University during the last four years, as well as his composing experience as a CARE ambassador. I learned a lot from him during that interview and it gave me a little peek of what I might see in the next four years while I am at Florida State. Another reason why I believe this was my best project is because I enjoyed formatting it and adding pictures to the article. The project I think I did my worst on was the third one because I am not the most creative person on earth, and I decided that I would attempt creative writing. On top of that, I had to get a little personal with the assignment since it was a letter to my younger self and I do not really like discussing my past with anyone, let alone posting about it on the internet. However, I did like that I got to try something new and got some experience out of it, but overall it was my least favorite project out of the three we did; therefore, I did not do my best on it. If I had another week to revise, I would try to add pictures and structure my projects to fit the format that a blog would have. Right now, all of my assignments are very plain and the most that I have done, to make them less of an eye sore, is add a picture to it. This does not sit well with my conscience but due to the amount of work I have received in other classes and the amount of hours we have in a day, I have not been able to work on my e-portfolio as much as I would like to. Furthermore, I actually like to work on my e-portfolio and if we had another week to work on it, I would try my hardest to get the 100s I have been striving to get the entire semester. In conclusion, ENC 1101 has been a great learning experience about composing, but more importantly, I learned about myself as a composer as well. I did not notice how much I have improved within the context of my composing and I am now very proud of myself. However, I know I can be better and ENC 1101 has motivated me to work on my composing goals whenever I have free time and not wait until I get an assignment for class to work on them.
