Personal Statement: Dificulty Level

The expectations of writing in college compared to writing in high school greatly differ. In high school our focus was on narrating an essay, but in college you are interpreting the information and sources to then explain your ideas in-depth. Your essay structure also has no boundaries; you’re free to organize the essay however

Additionally, this chapter identifies some fears that college students may face when taking writing classes, especially at the time of working on an essay. Most of the time, these terrors are the product of non-factual or misleading beliefs from students that have not taken a writing class yet, however, it plays an important decision making when enrolling to take writing classes.

In this article, “College Success” written by Bruce Beiderwell, Linda Tse, Thomas J. Lochhaas, and Nicholas B. deKanter, they explain the differences of high school and college writing, expectations of the instructors, and the types of papers that are assigned. Most students who struggle in their writing are usually still going through their transformation into college, without even knowing it. Though, how can you see these symptoms? “Students who struggle with writing in college often conclude that their high school teachers were too easy or that their college instructors are too hard” (Beiderwell, P. 1). When going into college there are all sort of ways of writing an essay, in high school you were taught the five paragraph basic

At the beginning of the semester I entered General Studies Writing 1110, not knowing what to expect. I knew the class was solely based on writing and perfecting personal style, but I never anticipated the valuable information I would learn throughout the course of the year. The only advanced English class I have taken in high school was English Honors in eighth grade. That class gave me the base knowledge of writing, grammar and form that has helped me through my four essays in this class. Starting out, I was not sure what the standard for passing was; even though it was unclear to me what passing was, I strove for perfection. By the time the second essay came around I realized my writing was never perfect. Peer editors and family played a

One to the reasons the prospect of going to university and continuing my education scared me, was the fact that I would have to write essays. I kind of got essays, but I didn't, if you know what I mean. I get stories, poems, and articles; but essays were kind of weird. Their rules on how to convey information in such a precise, formatted way. I mean it was an academic vehicle for conveying the information you found during research. What was with all this style, rules, and high fluting language, just say what you need to say!

In all reality, I think I’ve maybe wrote ten actual essays in my life, if even that. I went to a small school that taught us more on how to act proper, respectful, and thoughtful rather than things that may benefit our future schooling. I do love that they taught us all of that because it made me a better person but on the other hand it did set me a few steps back when it came to school. I wish they would have made us write more and put more effort into our school because trying to learn it all when you’re in middle or even high school can be embarrassing. So, since I was too embarrassed that I knew nothing on writing I just always pushed it out of the way and hoped I’d eventually learn it on my own, which never happened.

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.

Many people question the importance of a college education. By attending an institution of higher education, individuals are provided an opportunity that is not as widespread to those who choose not to attend. Earning a college degree is said to prepare you, both intellectually and socially, for your working career and adult life. But no one said earning a degree would be easy. There are many issues commonly experienced by college students that can sometimes pose major challenges to earning a degree. One of the greatest challenges that I have faced throughout out my college career, is writing an academic essay. Even though my writing has gotten better over the past couple of years, I still stress over assignments. Not only have this course

Writing in college is often a huge transition for incoming freshman that do not have a very good writing background. I came from a high school where education was not taken very seriously, and the teachers did not take pride in their teaching. My grammar and punctuation skills were weak, and the whole thought of writing a four to six page essay was a very stressful thought. At the beginning of the semester I had already learned more in writing then what I had learned in my whole four years of high school. I have passed essays two and three and have started to see my writing skills progress as the semester goes on. The progress I have made throughout the semester is why I feel I should pass this course. I have learned proper grammar, developing paragraphs, and my incorporation of sources has improved to back up my writing.

As a freshman at the University of Georgia, I was only four hours from home, and constantly being challenged by homesickness, better education and a lack of understanding of who I was and who I wanted to be. This change of pace blindsided me and moved me to enter an area of complacency. I could not stay in this place for long due to the sudden passing of my sister. She was an intelligent, humble thirty-three-year-old diabetic single mother with three children and an incredible story to share.

This semester while attending English 1102 I have had some rude awakenings. I have discovered that writing essays for Gentry take time and patients, which is something I never really put into essay before now. I usually just waited until the last minute and wrote the first thing that came to my mind. Then I would do very little revising and I would get a graded I was content with having. Then this class came about and I had to break myself out of the role of writing my essay the day of or the night before. I also had to take the time and read the novel or story I was about to write an essay on. It has also taken me the whole semester to figure out what exactly evidence was and what was supposed to be in the conclusion. I have finally realized the mistakes I have been making and this allowed me to get most of my essays to at least a B.

At the beginning of eighth grade I wasn’t prepared to write an essay because the concept was a little new to me since I haven’t always been the most efficient learner. Getting to the end of the year in eighth grade I had improved my vocabulary, and the way I organize my body paragraphs. During the first quarter of my freshmen year writing essays still took getting used to, which meant I was gonna be challenged. As time went

When I first signed up for the class last year, I was expecting an extremely hard class dedicated to solely writing essays. In a sense, I was not wrong in that it was hard class and most of the assignments included writing. At that time, I had little confidence in my writing abilities. I dreaded every moment I had to spend on writing assignments. Even though I hated writing, I decided to challenge myself to take the class to improve my writing capabilities. At the

When it came to the essays writing became a little trickier because I had to understand what it was I needed to write about and the style in which I need to write it in. There are nine essay writing methods which I learned while attending this course: exemplification, compare/contrast, cause and effect, proposal, narration, process, division/classification, definition, and argument. The only problems I encountered when trying to write the essays that were assigned to me by the instructor was finding suitable subject matter to write about. Once I found my topics for my essay, everything else became easier. I would first produce a rough draft and then the students, the instructor, and myself would go over them in class and decided if what I was writing was in its best form. Most of my rough drafts needed improvement, but if it didn’t it wouldn’t be a rough draft, so it was understood. My final drafts were very satisfying for me as well as the grades I received on them.

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