At the beginning of the semester I was pretty nervous about starting this class, primarily because I thought it was going to be overly challenging. I knew that developing strong professional and technical writing would be a valuable skill that would serve me in several ways throughout the rest of my college career and likely for the rest of my life. I also figured, however, that there was no way that the class could be made any fun if I was restricted to being a “technical and professional” writer. Now that the semester is coming to a close and I’ve successfully made my way through the pro-tech writing course I can definitely say that I was pleasantly surprised.
Although the course focuses primarily on concepts such as the AIDA model and the way it’s implemented into all professional pieces of writing, we were still given the flexibility to incorporate creative aspects of ourselves in almost all of our work. Being able to develop our own start up company and a product to go along with it was really motivating toward the end of the semester. I know that personally, it gave me something to look forward to and something more to strive for because I knew that taking the time to spend on it would result in a greater final piece.
I also appreciated that we were able to work on the same concept, with the same group members over the course of multiple projects. This is something my professors don’t typically do, but it turned out to be very beneficial in terms of collaboration. Over time I felt myself and my group mates getting more comfortable and confident working with the material and with each other, and I think it really showed in our work.
Overall, I think pro-tech has helped me become much more comfortable with making mistakes, more confident in solving them, and more well rounded as a student overall. I attribute part of this to the course itself, but more so to everyone who was a part of the class this semester. It was great to be a part of such a motivating and engaging learning environment.
