Building a new Foundation

     Puzzles, games, woodwork, problem solving, and r/c truck repairs are just my thing. After all, I’ve always had a knack for fixing things or making them better, and that’s why I had my heart set on Mechanical Engineering when I arrived at Iowa State. However, it wasn’t too long ago that I had an interest in journalism and writing. Having gone through my junior year in high school with consistent A’s and two teacher requests for copies of my essays in AP Language, I felt that I would make a great journalist and that it would be a way for me to get closer to the cars I read about in Motor Trend magazine. With this previous aspiration and my current goals in mind, I’ve learned a lot about myself as a writer, including how I was taught to write, what I like to write about, and how I prepare myself to write various types of essays, articles, and stories. These facets of my writing not only paint a portrait of who I am as a writer, but also of who I am as a person and how I express myself through the power of a pen and paper.

     The importance of learning how to write with a pencil and paper could not have been stressed enough as I grew up. Before I reached Kindergarten, my dad would have me write sentences on lined paper for hours each night, pointing out any flaws in the clarity and neatness of the words I wrote. It’s this stringent attention-to-detail that I notice the most in my written works today. I find myself scanning for mistakes multiple times and dwelling over the most senseless sources of error, such as whether or not the word “rustic” sounds better than the word “rural” in a sentence. Although this tendency seems like overkill, it assures me that I will not have points deducted for making a silly grammar error or mistake in punctuation. However, I feel that I may not have to spend as much time on those small details in my writing now that I’m in English 250. With grammar absent from the grading rubrics in this class, I feel that I can now spend more time working on the breadth and depth of the main subject in my writing, while focusing less attention to trivial slips in my grammar. This marks only a minor deviation from how I normally write, but the topics I like to write about most and the types of writing I most prefer will always remain the same.

     The topics I most prefer to write about have almost nothing in common with how I was taught to write. Having grown accustomed to the typical non-fiction book about cars and the investigative books titled “Nate the Great” and “Sherlock Holmes”, I was yearning for a way to write about me, who I am, and the personal aspects of my life. Unfortunately, the opportunity to expound on my life experiences didn’t come until my junior year in high school, when I decided to write an essay titled “The Pursuit of Happiness” about my first girlfriend and how my time with her had a personal impact on me. The fact that this personal essay was the most enjoyable work I’ve ever written and the fact that it received an excellent grade indicated that the absence of personal reflection in my life had led me to prefer more personal essay topics. With this in mind, I enjoy writing about essay topics that I have an intellectual or emotional connection with. I believe this holds true for many people, and in contrast to Sonia Sotomayer’s belief that a natural writer only writes one draft, I believe that every person is a natural writer when given a topic that they have knowledge on or have an emotional connection with. Lastly, I’m looking forward to writing essays that are tailored to my major in English 250. I think it’s good experience for future writing applications in my field of study and I think I will learn a great deal more about myself as a writer. In particular, I want to see how I can expand my preparation for writing essays on different topics, an aspect to writing that is usually glossed over, but which I have already thought deeply about.

     When I am preparing to write an essay, I tend to delve into deep thought without any distractions around me. I close and lock the door to my room, turn off my cell phone and computer, and shut the shades to fully immerse myself in a state of focus. This is usually how I begin brainstorming an introduction to my personal essays, because I believe a strong introduction sets the tone for the entire essay. For example, making a good first impression with an employer is key to obtaining a job and being successful in the interview process. This is the same case with writing. A strong introduction captures the reader’s attention and describes a brief summary of what the reader can expect see in the body of the written work. In preparing for a research paper, I typically go for a walk outside, go to the mall, or take a drive around town looking for ideas and pondering the issues that face us in the world. In this case, I’ll go home and look up solutions to the societal problems that I’ve noticed in the world around me.  I’ll then write a strong introduction that I can base the rest of work on. Overall, starting with a strong introduction by delving into deep thought and analyzing everyday problems is how I prepare for writing an essay or narrative. I expect that I’ll be able to build upon this systematic preparation throughout my spring semester at Iowa State. By having more places to explore and more people to see, I’ll be able to develop a broader range of ideas for the essays I write in English 250 and in my mechanical engineering classes.

      Writing plays a major role in my classes as a mechanical engineering major, and it’s this form of communication that continues to develop with new terms and lingo as time passes by. With this constant change in the vocabulary of the English language, it’s important for me to recognize what areas of my writing are strong, which areas need work. From how I was taught to write and what I like to right about, to how I prepare myself for various types of written work, I’ve realized that having a firm foundation is key to writing good essays. In the past, many English teachers formed that foundation through numerous rules and set standards for writing, such as word count. These rules and standards limited my ability to express myself in my written work, especially in my personal essays. Now that I’m in college and taking English 250 this semester, I want to rebuild a foundation for my writing that is based on my strengths in vocabulary, sentence structure, and inclusion of personal examples, as well as on the expectations for writing in my mechanical engineering classes. After considering what we discussed in class about free-writing and suppressing our “inner critic”, I believe this rebuilt foundation for my writing will help me become more proficient in my major and help prepare me even more for job placement after college and for all of my future writing endeavors.