5/18/2021

This is it, the final journal entry. It’s been a really fun and productive semester, and I learned so much, especially from this course. I was always able to handle the math and science aspect of things, but the writing and communication part is always where I struggled and so this class really helped me. I just finished my final draft for my engineering proposal and I’m very proud of the final product. However, I feel like I could’ve done better, but I just don’t have enough time to really work on it and touch it up because of all the finals I have from other classes. It’s still a product that I’m very proud of, but I just know I can do better, especially with this being the last assignment in the class. Regardless, it’s a topic that I’m very passionate about and reading it back, I sound like an actual scientist or engineer with resources and experiments conducted. I’m excited to see what proposals I can write when I become an actual engineer with years of experience and research to back up my claims in my proposal and who knows, maybe I’ll use the same proposal I used for this assignment. I still have my self assessment that I need to write, but I already have an idea of what I’m going to talk about. Looking back and seeing how far I’ve come from the technical description essay which was very poor to be honest, all the way to the engineering proposal, which is a much better final product. I’ve learned so much about writing, about how to do it, about its importance and relevance in today’s world, and I’m going to carry all that I’ve learned with me through my future academic career. That’s all for today, and I wish you all the best of luck with the rest of your academic careers and your futures!

5/8/2021

Hey everyone! Welcome to my ninth journal entry. In this entry I want to talk about my progress so far with the engineering proposal. I drafted it today and finished my first two sections and outlined the rest. When I turned on my computer to start writing, I kind of blanked out because it felt like I had nothing to go off of. With all previous assignments, we usually had to outline it first and then start writing but there wasn’t an outline assigned for this one, which made starting really hard. I just had a bunch of really good ideas in my head but no way of organizing them, so I made a little outline for myself to start off. I actually never realized the importance of outlining until now, when it wasn’t something assigned but something I needed to do to start writing. It’s not just for the professor or my peers to get an overall picture of my essay topic, but it’s more for me, as the writer, to organize my thoughts in a way that makes sense and has an impact on the reader. What started off as a five minute very rough outline became very detailed as I did more research and found more sources and information. After that, the essay just writes itself, with ideas building off of each other. The outline is most of the leg work in the assignment, after that it becomes very easy. I’m very proud with what I’ve come up with so far in my engineering proposal, as I was able to tackle very complex ideas and technologies that I never really learned about before and had to research on my own. I also thoroughly outlined the rest of the proposal so that in the coming days as I finish it, it’ll be a lot easier and more coherent. We’re very close to the end of the semester and I’m going to make sure to make a good final impression.

4/30/2021

Hey everyone! I want to start off this journal by looking back and seeing how far I’ve come not only as a writer, but as an engineering writer. I’ve never had assignments that really emphasized the science and research portion, they all stressed the actual essay. This class has really helped me hone my skills and be able to write with an engineering purpose in mind, not for a grade. With that being said, there’s still a lot to work on. I’ve started thinking about my Engineering Proposal, which is the last and heaviest assignment of the semester. I want to make this one count, to represent that I really have improved and learned a lot over the past few months. I decided to write about developing and advancing current CRISPR technology in order to help treat and potentially cure cancer patients. In its current state, CRISPR can go into a cell, change and edit its DNA, and get out. However, if we’re going to use this to combat cancer, we can’t edit the DNA of cells one at a time, which is what my main focus is going to be. If I can come up with a way for CRISPR to target multiple cells at the same time, that would be a huge step towards the cure for cancer. This honestly means a lot more to me than just an assignment for this class, because it’s something I really believe could work and would do it myself if I had the experience and resources. I’ve lost multiple people to cancer and I wish I could take the matters into my own hands but unfortunately I can’t just yet. However, being here and writing this proposal is all pushing me towards that goal, and I’m very excited to start drafting. I want to make a good final impression in this class, and this is how I do that. That’s it for today, I’ll be back next week.