Initial Thoughts of the Class

Firstly I want to start off with the fact that 2020 has been a crazy year for everyone especially the students and the teachers. This was the first class that I took that was based on discussions instead of lectures like we normally do when in person. In the beginning I thought I wouldn’t learn much due to there being no physical person talking to us whenever we met. But it was the exact opposite as I expected, the professor gave us lots of resources and helped out whenever possible. Unlike other non-lecture classes this class felt a lot more engaging and straight forward. The instructions were clear cut so turning in the work was not a problem. I also commend the professor for making the peer review session very easy for us. He put us in groups and gave us time to go over each other’s work and provide good insight on each other’s writing pieces. The writing pieces were also very informative and allowed us to learn certain skills that we would need in the future for our careers as engineers.

Technical Descriptions

 The technical description assignment was a very thorough one that tested our sense of research and describing an object.The professor asked the class to choose an object  that we are interested in exploring and writing an in-depth description of it. I chose the calculator due to the fact that I thought this was the most effective tool when it came to engineering. Engineers are always required to make precise calculations based on their surroundings, this means the calculator is an engineers best friend. I also had to choose a specific brand of calculators to narrow down the possibilities. I chose Texas Instruments, this is because they are and always have been the most efficient at what they do and have the most features. They also connect to computers so it makes them the most realistic for engineers to carry on the go, may that be at job sites or even in the lab. After choosing the mechanism I had to start the research to get the exact dimensions and features of the calculator. This includes the history of calculators and how they progressed throughout the years. I also went in depth in the hardware and software aspects of the calculator.

All in all this assignment honed my skills for descriptive writing and also taught me how to do clean research and sift through the more accurate articles.

Engineering Memo

This was a group project that at first kind of worried me. This was because of COVID-19 and distance learning. Working as groups when not face to face can sometimes be difficult. But the way the Professor set it all up actually made it very easy to get through and communicate with our group members. We all had to decide on a roll that we wanted, either the topic manger, research Manager and the Submission Manager. I chose the role of topic manager because I usually come up with good ideas on the fly. Due to the fact that I lived in Long Island I thought it would be easier to write about the negatives of the Long Island Railroad. When school was in person I rode the LIRR everyday so I already had a ton of experience with the topic at hand. In this assignment I learned a ton,  I also achieved the learning outcomes of developing and engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, engaging in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and a ton more.

Lab Report

For this assignment we were required to find a problem and make a scientific report on it. This was one of the more challenging assignments throughout the year but it was one that taught me a lot about research and the correct way it should be done. The topic I chose was distance learning and the coronavirus. This was a topic that hit it home for me, there were many things that I saw in myself when I was doing research on the matter. This assignment helped me navigate through the CCNY database more efficiently and allowed me to become very efficient when it came to the aspects of research. The writing goals that I achieved during this assignment were formulating and articulating a stance through and in your writing and practice using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to your writing projects

Engineering Proposal

This assignment was the longest out of all of them but in my opinion the most interesting one. We were asked to find a problem in New York City and propose a change with a certain budget that the department had. This made it so that we had boundaries and it would be extremely realistic. I choose the New York City Subway system and how to make it more efficient. There are tokens of small problems that make up the huge problem of delays and inefficiency in the subway system. This helped with research skills and formal writing