3/19/2021

Welcome to my fourth journal entry! I realize that I’m actually a day late with this entry because I did this on a Friday and I usually do my journals on Thursdays. I don’t want to start slacking with the journals because I enjoy giving back feedback on how I’m doing in this class every week. So far, my team and I have completed the outline for the memo, which I’m very glad about. Being able to give and receive feedback from my teammates while doing the outline helped a lot actually because it made the final product more detailed and also helped give me new perspectives on my writing. Our first draft is due this upcoming Monday, which is in three days. I’m excited to start working on it collaboratively with my team, because it gives us all an opportunity to make a better memo, while also doing less work per person because it’s split across the three of us. I recently looked at the class website and saw that this was the only major group assignment which was kind of a bummer because I’m actually starting to enjoy group work again. It’s very different from high school, which I’m very glad about. I understand that this class is about focusing on your own writing more than it is about groupwork, but I would’ve liked to see some groupwork as well, considering that our careers will be all about group work. There will most likely be more group work posts in the discussion board, but working on a major assignment just feels like we’re working together towards something greater. Regardless, I’m excited to see what happens with this memo assignment and the rest of the semester!

3/11/2021

Another week another journal entry! So far this week, we started brainstorming for our memo project, which is the first group project I’ve done in a while. Ever since the pandemic, I haven’t really done any group work because it’s so difficult with online schooling. In high school, I used to hate group work. Me and my teammates were just never on the same page and it always felt like I did more work, and yet we all got the same grade which wasn’t fair. I was always the lone wolf, and felt like I could never trust my teammates to handle anything in the project, otherwise it would all fall apart. But it’s different now that I’m in college. I feel like I could trust my teammates more, and also really love the fact that we each get our own grade, so that my grade doesn’t depend on the work of my teammates. I used to really dislike that because I ended up doing all the work, and we all got the same grade. However, I actually miss the groupwork now, because it’s been so long. I miss discussing topics and playing devil’s advocate and bringing multiple points of view to a specific subject. It’s different now because we can’t really meet up and discuss in person, but there’s still a lot of means of communication and it’s not really an issue. I’m looking forward to working on this project with my team, because teamwork is a skill that I really need to work on. It’s so essential in pretty much every job, and if I can’t work with a team, then I just won’t be able to succeed. I’m hoping to learn a lot from this project, about both engineering and teamwork. But that’s all for now I’ll be back next week!

3/4/2021

Happy March! I can’t believe it’s been a year since the first confirmed coronavirus case in New York, it feels like it’s been forever. It’s just frustrating because I feel like I could learn so much more if classes were in person. This coronavirus pandemic ruined a lot of my plans for this year and a lot of my college experience. Everyone always says that these are supposed to be the best years of your life, and I’m spending the best years of my life in my bed. In person classes are just so much more helpful. For example, the email that I received from Professor Otte was very helpful and the feedback helped push me in the right direction, but receiving that feedback in person and working on my essay together in person would be so much better for me to understand what needs work in my essay. Also giving back and receiving feedback to my peers would be easier in person. There’s a lot of meaning that is missed when it’s just emails back and forth or texts back and forth. Regardless, I’m happy with where I am in this class. I did very well on my first draft for the technical description, and aim to make it even better in the final draft due next week. I really enjoy receiving feedback from both my instructor and my peers because it offers multiple perspectives so that I can get a better overview of what I did well and what I need to work on. I will be spending the weekend working on this essay to get it as perfect as possible and meet all the requirements for the essay. But that’s it for now, I’ll be back next week!