WHAT?

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In the fall semester of my second year, I took honors intermediate composition. This class consisted of 3 main assignments: a literacy narrative, a rhetorical comparison and analysis consisting of different genres, and an ethnography. We also read many articles throughout the course, with this course being heavily discussion-based in order to completely understand how to write and how to comprehend genres.

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SO WHAT?

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This experience helped me to become a better reader, writer, and critical thinker. As a business major, to  be quite frank, we do not do much writing in terms of essays. This course helped me to be more well-rounded, accept feedback on my writing, and it especially helped me to understand how to read multiple genres. This was especially helpful because it got me out of my comfort zone. Previously, I was afraid of reading works in academic journals, but now I am able to do so with confidence. I also had to conduct a good amount of secondary and primary research, which made it seem less daunting for my upcoming market research course.

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NOW WHAT?

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In this course, I learned a lot regarding reading, writing, critical thinking, and research. I have become a much better critical thinker and always think "what is the point of this," and because of how much peer-reviewing this course entails, I am now better at accepting peer critiques and not thinking I am always right the first time, as well as being a peer reviewer. The changes between my many drafts of each essay are huge, not only in terms of general grammar/writing conventions, but entire structures and main points have been changed from essay-to-essay.

 

The things I have learned in this course, though they have not been directly applicable to any coursework yet, I am sure will be helpful in the future as I start to take upper-level coursework which requires more critical thinking, primary and secondary research, and outside reading, and writing. Additionally, upon graduation, I am sure there will be tons of applicable skills that I learned from this class. I look forward to putting my skills to the test, even if it is not during my college career. 

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SAMPLE OF WORK

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This is my second essay, a rhetorical analysis and comparison of genre with the topic of data/surveillance capitalism. This piece was super interesting to me because of the topic (as a business analytics and marketing major). I got to choose the topic as well as the sources, and I really enjoyed writing this.

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Though not required to include more than one sample, I have also included my ethnography because it is on my honors group, Circle of Excellence which is an important program to me and my success at UC.