Bruce Beiderwell College Success Summary

In high school I was not the best at writing. I did not find this out until I was places in advanced English. I was used to writing papers that had to be simple. So when I started receiving C’s and D’s I told myself something had to change. I finally realized that I could not write as well as most of my classmates. So, what I ended up doing was making my papers more complex and making my sentences stronger. When I applied myself I became a stronger writer. As I took the diagnostic test I saw I was making a lot of mistakes. At the end I made a 70. From this I could see why I encountered the bad experiences in high school and in college.

First and foremost writing has always been a bit of a challenge for me. My writing in high school was mostly regarding essays about a book I was assigned to read and analyze. I've noticed that there's a difference between my writing in high school and the essays i've wrote so far in college. My writing in college seems to be far more formal and includes complex wording. My writing in college tends to be longer than most essays i wrote in high school and far more detailed.

When I started my first semester of college, I was very worried about writing essays and research papers. I felt like my writing skills lacked greatly compared to other students. I knew a few things of which I could improve on right off the bat, such as my vocabulary skills and organizational skills. To say the least I was very nervous about how my writing composition course would be like and did not think it would go very well for me. However, I learned so many techniques that have helped my writing skills grow. It all started with learning how to stay organized, planning what to write in your essay in outline form and sticking to it really helped when writing essays. These techniques helped me become more confident in my essays and allowed writing essays to become a lot easier. The few aspects in which I am strong in while writing essays is my ability to stay organized, focused and be very clear about what I am writing. Nonetheless, there is always room for improvement; a few things that I can think of being grammar and punctuation due to no revising, embedding quotes smoothly, and citing sources correctly.

My high school years were not spectacular, nor were they terribly productive.I left high school without learning how to proficiently write an essay. However, CUNY's Borough of Manhattan Community College afforded me a desperately needed second chance. It was at BMCC that I sharpened many of the skills I should have mastered in high school. I was able to greatly improve my writing ability. I began college as a student who found writing a 2 page paper to be a terrifyingly daunting task, but due to practice and numerous resources offered by CUNY, I soon was able to compose papers consisting of 10-14 pages with confidence and efficiency.

As seniors about to embark on a journey into the adult world, it’s important to be prepared for what college professors expect in an essay. The article, What do College Professors Want from Incoming High School Graduates, was very insightful on how different the rules are. It states the different skills and mindsets an incoming freshmen must have to succeed in more advanced writing classes. It explains how high school and college writing differ, also how the two are similar. In order to be successful in school and in life one must become independent and open to change.

I, one of millions of first-year college students, believe that I write bland essays due to the fact that my high school English teachers failed to teach me how to think clearly and creatively. For instance, with my twelfth English teacher, Mrs. Tuttle, there are many cases to which I felt she could’ve improved her teachings not only for me to understand how to write a well-developed paper but as well as others students. First case scenario being how she gave class activities and her teaching style. She had a way of giving activities based on the feeling of how she felt would be a good way for us to learn the material versus what we felt would be the best way to learn the material. These ways included little to no group work. Writing a bunch of illegitimate papers that would be graded by my peers who had little to no idea of what right or wrongs they were looking for. Thus for leaving me with an ambiguous reason to what my writings were lacking or why I never made anything higher than a C in her class. Another way would be the fact that she lived off the teaching theory of “if one can do it then all can do it”. This hands down was the number reason why I could never write a well thought out, clear and creative paper. With this method she felt that if Amanda Ho, class valedictorian, could write an outstanding paper, then the entire Class of 2015 could write one just as well. Never coming to an understanding that everyone wasn’t Amanda Ho, everyone didn’t have the brains

In regards to writing, I have always struggled to meet all of the requirements for a perfect paper that includes a well-organized text filled with rich analytical sentences. In the beginning of the semester I constantly worried about the structure of my writing and its overall material. In high school it was important for me to complete my essays by answering the questions that I was given, but in college, students go more into depth. College students are required to focus on grammar, and well-structured ideas that flow along with rich analytical content. After I was given my first assignment I was pressured to improve my overall work by focusing on structure and developing analytical content. Assignments such as the weekly readings and writing assignments helped me improve my overall work. Through the narrative essay, artist research essay and Storify project I focused on many aspects that improved my writing. For all of my assignments, it was useful to use techniques, such as, reading out loud to revise the structure of my work and going into depth with description.

Starting college during high school was probably one of the best decisions I’ve made. I have learned so much being part of a college English class. Some weaknesses I had before in my writing turned into strengths because of this class. I also learned a lot about my interests and other weaknesses I never knew I had. One of my weaknesses, organization in writing, improved immensely. My improving organization made my papers more interesting and intriguing. My grammar and punctuation also improved due to the in-class quizzes we took every so often. My grades on essays increased greatly throughout time because of my strengthening skills on grammar and punctuation. The writing process was different for each essay, but it also improved. I became

Throwing back my three years in high school, my writing skill was bad. In English class, when I was a Sophomore, my English teacher used to call me into her office. She told that my essay was full of bad grammars and too vague. As a result, she gave the lowest score in the class. Also even when we wrote the college application, most English teachers told my essays were too vague. Fortunately, after a few revise, it was getting better

I can see how College Writing 101 could have been easy for some, people coming straight out of high school that is, with all the skills still fresh in their minds, but I can say with absolute certainty that this was a challenge for me to complete. Although, I began Writing 101 with very few writing skills and even fewer grammar skills, I can honestly say looking back that I retained a great deal of knowledge in a surprisingly short amount of time. Never the less, I found out one of the hardest challenges in my fledgling writing career is actually deciding what to write about for each assignment. subsequently I had to figure out the whole “College Correct” way of writing and fragment everything together. Yet, once I finally did, then all it demanded was figuring out how to create a thesis statement that will provide me with something of substance to build off of for the rest of the essay.

Most college students may know how to write. Many of them tend to think writing is just a basic skill and if you are one of them you’re wrong! College students who think writing is a basic skill, in my opinion, need to change their way of thinking since it’s just a myth. Writing is a complex and it’s a tough skill to master. I read an article, “Writing Is Not Just a Basic Skill”, by Mark Richardson. I agree with Richardson’s way of thinking regarding this myth, this myth can be harmful to those students who tend to think they know how to write just because they are familiar with grammatical usage, mechanics and the format of an essay or assignment. On the contrary, when it comes to writing we need to know how to use rhetoric and make your ideas and thoughts clear to be able to transmit what we are talking about.

I never truly understood the meaning of writing an essay. Well, that is, until I came to college. Right away I was given a writing portfolio. Most people in the class knew what that meant but I didn’t and that made me feel as if I shouldn’t be there. But I decided that I won’t give up. I want to get farther than anyone in my family. Which should be easier since no one in my family went to college. I had plenty of problems in the beginning of the year because I was new to the idea of living on my own and providing for myself. I wasn’t familiar with all of the work that I had to do in such a short time. Which made adjusting to college difficult

Writing on the college level can be difficult and it require focus organization and discipline. Before starting out a student needs to have a clear focus on their chosen topic. One should never be too, always be specific. College writing assignments requires students to support their points with evidence. To most effectively present an idea it is important that its support be organized adequately. While many students tend to rattle off their evidence at the start. A topic should be introduced first and a claim should be made to the reader. That claim is then supported with specific evidence. Students should be mindful not to let evidence speak for itself it is important to explain everything to the reader. This is how a college writing assignment

My experience with English has changed drastically from middle school to college. Being in middle school I have really had to do much of a big paper, but as I progressed through college I’ve realized there much more that has to be added. I had always wondered why middle school was so easy but as years went on, I realized that advancing to college there’s a lot more requirements and importance to writing. In middle school, I was young and just starting to really realize what an essay was and after high school I really understood what an essay consists of. No matter how

In contrast, the College Writing course included a variety of new skills and challenging writing assignments. I learned how to organize an essay so it reflected my ideas in a concise manner, without the