An Engineering Class Without Formulas and Equations:

Course description of Writing for Engineering

Writing is a necessary communication skill in most professions, engineering, and computer science included, especially as we move up the career ladder.  This course provided an environment for us to develop our writing and presentation skills.  We learned and practiced general writing skills that are applicable to any kind of writing, and we also produced work in writing genres that are specific to engineering, computer science, and the working world. The course had five major assignments: Interview Report, Resume and Cover letter, Group Proposal, Lab report, and Technical Description.

Interview Report 

The Interview assignment was about interviewing a person related to our major field. It consists of four parts. The first part is to locate the person through social clubs or social media platforms such as LinkedIn or the person can be anyone who you are related to. The second part is to send him a formal letter about your purpose of sending the email and fixing a time and place to meet. Locating and getting a response from a person can turn out to be the hardest part of the assignment. After the interview is done, we had to write a report about the interview.  The report included the person’s introduction, job roles in his previous and current jobs and the advice the person gave. The last part of the assignment was to send the person a thank you email and sending the recordings and copy of the email to the professor.

Resume and Cover letter

In this assignment, we had to create a resume that included sections such as a summary of ourselves and what position we are looking for, education, work/volunteer experience, and skills and awards. In the cover letter assignment, we had to write a formal letter where we had to state our purpose of writing the letter, talk about our skills in three to four paragraphs and ask for an interview.

Group Proposal

In the group proposal, we had to collaborate with our classmates to come up with a proposal that improves any condition of CCNY. The first work to do is to make a team. During our team selection, we chose the ones that we were close to and had conversations. But it’s not advised and can cause problems when the person you are selecting for your team is not responsible and doesn’t want to contribute. So, the best advice for selecting a team member is to observe their activities and participation in class. The second thing to do is to come up with a proposal. Our team members had their own ideas. But we had to come to a conclusion and select the best idea. The third thing we had to do was surveys and research. It can be difficult but its a crucial part of the proposal. It tells you how viable your proposal is and it gives support to your proposal. Next, you have to write about the proposal. We determined earlier who will write which part. We faced the problem of someone contributing less than others. But we finally had to finish it by doing their part since it was needed to be done. The final part is the presentation. Although it’s easy, you have to be prepared to answer the possible questions the audience can ask.

Lab report

In this assignment, we had to write a lab report about rolling a pair of dice hundred times and from the results, we had to come up with a hypothesis and try to prove them through analysis and result. In this assignment, we had to use CCNY’s online library to find a peer-reviewed article and make connections with our report to validate our work.

Technical Description

For this assignment, we had to create a technical description of some invention, process, or engineering marvel related to our major. The description included graphs or images for visualization of each component or process and a complete description of what the object is and what it is used for. This assignment also had a presentation part where we had to give a short presentation about our topic and its descriptions.

For each of these assignments, we had to use our CCNY’s online library to research the topics and find peer-reviewed articles related to the topics. Then we had to cite them in our essays or writings in APA style. Although reading the book was not absolutely required, I found it helpful while looking for examples of the assignments we were doing. We had to use Blackboard to submit our assignments and also had to bring a hard copy in the class. In presentation, PowerPoint was also not required. It was up to the person whos presenting to decide whether he wants to use PowerPoint or not.

Conclusion

Communication and writing are some of those skills that every employer looks for in their employees. Every job role consists of some sort of writing that can vary from just writing a formal email to writing reports or manuals. After taking this course, I can see how important writing skill is and how we can apply our course topics in real-life situations. For example, when an engineer tries to communicate with his client, he can use technical words that an ordinary person won’t understand .His communication type will not be the same when talks with his fellow coworkers. He has to keep in mind who his audience is and communicate accordingly. For many other reasons like this, I believe this course has prepared us well.