Final Reflection

During my sophomore year of high school, I began taking Dual-Enrollment classes at my local state college. I took as many general education classes as possible, and I completed nearly two years of college while in high school. I immediately took ENC 1101 and 1102 which satisfied my high school and college English requirements. I was especially pleased with finishing my English coursework considering I never had an exceptionally educational or interesting English class. Without having to take any English classes or many other required classes, I was remarkably confident about attending a university after high school. I toured Florida State University during the fall of my senior year, and I fell in love with the school. I was surrounded by towering red brick buildings, and the crisp autumn air was a comfortable difference from my childhood South Floridian neighborhood. As I walked under the canopy of oak trees by the Bellany Building, I couldn’t comprehend that I might be able to attend FSU. Everything seemed to be going great, until my high school friend who was giving me the tour mentioned a class named ENC 2135. He claimed that FSU doesn’t recognize ENC 1102 for their writing requirement any longer, and FSU had created their own English class to substitute for ENC 1102. I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing, so I tried my best to laugh it off and continue with my tour. However, as the months passed and I began to look at my academic map for my major at FSU, I was startled to see a name that haunted me since my tour, ENC 2135. This couldn’t be real, the class that I had tried to laugh off thinking somehow, I wouldn’t have to take was a required class. I was devastated, I thought that I was exempt from having to take anymore English classes. Yet, I knew I wouldn’t let one class stop me from attending the university that I had fallen in love with. I accepted my acceptance into FSU and signed up for orientation in May. At the end of student orientation students are required to sign up for their classes, and the first class that my advisor recommended was ENC 2135. Knowing that I would have to take the class sooner or later, I reluctantly signed up for it. During the month between orientation and the beginning of Summer C classes, I was dreading having to start ENC 2135. On June 26th classes started and I was introduced to the class that I had been fearing for almost a year. My professor introduced himself as Mat Wenzel, and he went over the syllabus discussing our first project which was a thousand words and our second project which was two thousand words. He talked about how we were going to learn about researching, genre conventions, and rhetorical strategies. I wasn’t especially familiar with any of these topics, and I seriously contemplated dropping the course and taking it in the fall. Despite my fears, I wanted to get ENC 2135 over with, so I decided to give it my all and get this class out of the way. I worked relentlessly at ENC 2135. I met with my teacher after class, turned in all my work on time, and revised all my major projects numerous times. During the course, I learned and understood what Ethos, Logos, and Pathos was the first time, and I even created my own website. We discussed how to project your work to specific audiences, and how to compose work in multiple genres. Additionally, we wrote eleven blog posts and posted them on our websites. Each blog post was roughly 300 words, and we had to evaluate either a chapter of our textbook or a text that Mat assigned us to read. Beyond this we had to write a one-thousand-word personal narrative, a two-thousand-word research paper, and then compose what we wrote about for a two-thousand-word research paper in three different genres for our third project. Through the duration of this course I was amazed by how much I was learning. I could look back on my work from the beginning of the semester, and see how much my writing had improved. I feel as if my ENC 2135 is a perfect example of what an English class should be. I improved my writing immensely, and for the first time, I composed my work in multiple genres. Furthermore, I worked one on one with my instructor to improve my work and to understand exactly where my strengths and weaknesses were in my papers. I conducted legitimate research using scholarly sources and primary sources, and I even composed an interview with my sister for my research paper. I was learning more in this six-week course than I had during all my high school and state college English courses. Overall, I thought that ENC 2135 was one of the best classes I had ever taken. I am supposed to offer suggestions for this course, however, I had a great experience and I learned more than I could have ever imagined. I am so thankful to have taken this course and been able to substantially improve my writing this much during a single summer term. I hope that this article can ease the worried thoughts of any incoming FSU students. ENC 2135 taught me imperative skills that will serve me through the rest of my academic and professional careers.