Blog #5: Matthew York

When I first read in my course requirements that I had to take an introductory English class, I wasn't thrilled. I had taken an English class every year of my educational career and I really wasn't looking forward to continuing. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed this class very much. I've never really considered myself a very strong writer and aside from doing well on the writing portions of the ACT/SAT, I had never really achieved success when it came to writing. In my senior year Government class, I had written Op-Eds every quarter for extra credit and was never published in a newspaper or even considered for it. The expectations I had for myself in this class were relatively low. I knew that it was a class that every freshmen at OSU would take, so I knew it wasn't designed to hurt our GPA's. At the same time, I had struggled with English both junior and senior year, so I was worried that it may continue.

Overall, I surpassed my goals this quarter in almost every aspect. I enjoyed this course much more than I thought I would and I also enjoyed writing the papers more than first expected. Throughout high school, we had always been told what to write about and what to research, so when I was given the opportunity to choose my arguments with the primary and secondary analysis, I was ecstatic. Throughout this quarter I feel that I have developed not only as a writer, but also as an editor. This class gave us opportunities in many fields of composition. Not only were we given the job of writing papers and manuscripts, but we were also designated peer reviewers for both analysis papers as well as the commonplace manuscript. I enjoyed the fact that not every assignment was centered around the same idea. It was refreshing to switch things up every once in a while and get a different perspective on things.

In conclusion, I enjoyed my time in English 110 and hope that the skills I learned in this class will reflect toward my abilities to defend opinions as well as back up arguments with research. While the business field doesn't center around writing research papers and critiquing people's works, I know that at some point, my tools acquired in this class will aid me in my career field some day. As someone who wasn't excited to write papers, I can honestly say that I am glad I took English 110 and feel fortunate to have learned so much within a span of 10 weeks.