Writing is an essential instrument in the modern world, especially in the engineering field where every idea is formulated in some form of written document. Most people have a hard time attributing writing and public speaking to the average engineer’s career, but when we look in the broader market, writing has become a prominent and vital part of the communication skills within the engineering field. Nowadays, every employer wants an engineer with high communication skills where ideas are communicated in a productive and efficient manner. It has become the greatest factor for a successful engineer and an astounding part of an engineering career. Imagine 3/4 people working on a project, having to collaborate ideas and transform it into a real life prototype. Now, the most important part of the project would be to communicate ideas efficiently and work on it so that each person gets to put in his thoughts and work on it accordingly. What makes the project successful depends highly on the collaboration skills and how each person puts in their work and present it in a way where the whole work seems to be  from a single voice. Something like that is only possible when each member of the team possess high communication skills where writing is used as a form of device to present thoughts, ideas, and solutions in a cohesive manner. Hence, I believe, the writing for Engineering course is a crucial part of our engineering curriculum, which effectively taught us the value of efficient communication and how it can used in the modern world to get things done.

The course started off with all the students having to write an intro paragraph about themselves, which I believe was a really smart way to start of the semester. The reason I say that is so obvious. It essentially had two key elements to it. The first was to get a better understanding of our classmates a learn a bit about them, which would gradually help us to find the team mates of ours liking for the group proposal later on. This also helped us to know all of our classmates better and I found it really interesting for every one of them had a different perspective and a different story to themselves. As a person who travels a lot, I find it really fascinating to know more about people and their lifestyle; what they have been through and the things they have experienced. This is a great way of gaining more wisdom for there is no limit to what you can learn from different people. The second most important thing about this assignment was to learn the perfect elevator speech. What that means is that just by telling our short story we were actually learning how to present ourselves in the real world so that when the time comes we are well prepared to tell that story in an effective manner. This is a crucial thing in the present world where opportunities are so limited, and one must count for each chance he gets to showcase their skills in the real world. The assignment also comprised of using the blackboard, a perfect way to get familiarized with the technology we would be using throughout the semester.

The second assignment was even more crucial to a successful engineering career. We were assigned to write our resume and a cover letter for a specific job position we were interested in, in our respective fields. I found it interesting as it directly related to the real world, something we don’t usually do in a coursework. I was also looking for an internship at that time and hence the assignment came as a bonus for me, which actually helped me to articulate a perfect resume and a cover letter for a specific job post I was interested in. Moreover, our professor taught us the perfect way to demonstrate our skills and attributes according to a specific type of job listing  and the way to make it appealing to an employer. The assignment also incorporated the use of technology in finding job opportunities online and the use of different search engines online to get the best results. All in all, it was an effective assignment that taught us the skill for applying for internships or co-ops, and a way to get into the real industry.

The next stop was the interview report. I would say it was a great assignment to learn more about our respective fields, including the tasks associated with it and the forms of writing an engineer has to do on a daily basis. So, the whole assignment was about interviewing an engineer in one’s field and learn the about their daily life in the engineering world. This comprised of their work schedule, the type of work they do, the type of writing involved, communication on a daily basis, number of meetings, goals in life and various miscellaneous stuffs that are associated with an engineering professional. In my case, he was a mechanical engineer and I got to learn so much from him. It was definitely an intriguing experience as I had the opportunity to learn more about the field firsthand from an engineer himself. He told me so many things about the industry and how to excel at one’s field. Like for instance, he told me the concerns about short term and long-term projects and their advantages and disadvantages. Like, for instance, short term projects mature over a short period of time and hence, it is possible to see it coming to life within a short period of time. Whereas, long-term projects usually comprise of 5-10 years and sometimes even more. The difficulty with those kinds of projects is that barely few people gets to see it coming to life for people tend to switch sectors after certain period of time.  Moreover, he gave me a lot of good advises, which really got into me, and techniques that could essentially be the pillar of my success. I am still holding on to those advises and hopefully int the future these would reflect in my success and achievements.

The lab report was the next assignment, which essentially had a lot of potential for new learnings. Basically, it comprised of almost everything from the course outcome such as information literacy, citation, drafting, reading, synthesis, use of technology and a little bit of audience analysis as well. The assignment was to write a lab report on the dice probability using scholarly articles. Hence, we were instructed to use the online resources, especially resources from the CCNY online library to gather information on the topic. The whole idea was to get familiarized with online scholar articles and how to use those in one’s own writing, a very important skill in the industrial world where research is the backbone of all great ideas. Also, it taught us the effective way to do all citations and give credits to the respective people. The reading and synthesis part were highly focused on this assignment as the research consisted of gathering ideas from several resources and combining them together with my own experiment to formulate a perfect paper. The use of technology was demonstrated throughout the assignment as the dice rolling was conducted on an excel spreadsheet and the whole research done on different search engines on the internet. Moreover, consideration on audience analysis was also a key element to the report for it had to be represented in such a way as so that anyone could understand the material in the simplest way. All in all, the lab report was an effective assignment in making us aware of different techniques used in the real world to formulate ideas and communicate them effectively in the professional world.

The group proposal might have been the most fascinating assignment of all. This was a challenge for all of us as for the first time in the semester we had to form teams and figure out a real problem on our very own campus and propose a solution to those problems. This is where the introduction paragraph came in handy and since we all knew a little bit of each other from beforehand, it was an easy task to select our team mates. The next challenge was to figure out a real problem. While we had few ideas, selecting one that we could actually work on was a tricky business. There were so many variables involved and finding the right problem to work with was definitely time consuming. Ultimately, we did figure out the perfect problem that presented a concern throughout the CCNY community and needed to be solved. So, for our final proposal we chose the CCNY shuttle bus and how it can be improved to provide better service to the CCNY students. The whole assignment involved a lot of collaboration, systhesis, drafting and the use of technology. For the first thing, the assignment involved heavy collaboration work where each of us were assigned a particular task to work on. This was definitely a great way to exercise our collaboration skills in a team-oriented project. By working together and effectively communicating with each other on different aspects of the project, we were getting ready for the real world where team work and collaboration are the essentials for any kind of success. Moreover, each of us gathered information on different parts of the proposal and combined them to make a perfect paper having a single voice. The use of technology was also extensive throughout the project, where survey websites were used to collect data on different opinions of the students. This was an important criterion in the project as we had to identify the concern of the students and had to get them the best solutions according to their needs. Also, google doc was highly used throughout the project to communicate the different tasks assigned to each individual and to lay it down in a single platform available to all of us to edit and work on. Careful consideration was also taken in analyzing the audience to present the data in such a way as to make them aware of the concerns and allow them to understand the material in an easy way. The assignment also included a presentation part where the proposal was laid down in front of an audience, in this case our classmates, and convince them the validity of the solution and their potential, if approved. The last part of the presentation consisted of taking questions from the peers and answering their doubts which resulted in better communication with the audience and gave us a firsthand experience on how to handle situations and concerns in the real world.

The next assignment was even more intriguing. This was the technical description where everyone had to present a topic from of their own choosing related to their respective major. The major components involved all of the course learnings and the execution of research about a specific discovery, invention or a tech phenomenon of all time. On a personal level, I am really interested in jet aircrafts as my goal is to become an aeronautical engineer. Hence, I found this assignment helpful. Moreover, I am working for a jet aircraft competition next year, which gave me valuable advantage to go in more depth on the research and present my materials well enough for the audience. Some of the highlights from the assignments was the use of citation in crediting others work, use of synthesis to gather information and present it an arranged and technical way such that it makes it more appealing to the audience.  The assignment also involved evaluating and articulating the genre to a proper stance and formulating the style while also making the materials more transparent for the audience.

 All in all, the course was a great way to learn more about the writings involved in the engineering world. By incorporating different aspects of research work and collaborating techniques, the course allowed for versatile improvements in my writing. Not only I learned how to better articulate my writing but also how to present it in a well-defined manner to my audience. As a resul, I am more confident than ever about my communication skills, which, I know, will serve me well throughout my engineering career. Lastly, I would like to say, any skill that’s worth learning requires a lot of practice and as said by George R.R Martin, “Ideas are cheap. It’s the execution that is all important.”

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