Growth and evolution are necessary for survival; the faster deer lives, the stronger the lion keeps its territory, and the smarter human beats the rest for a new stable job. In my experience throughout this course, my writing style has changed significantly, with the first examples being closer to a story and the newer examples now being more informative with story-like aspects. During the beginning of this course, for my first writing assignment, I ended up waiting until the last minute to write it, and it severely hindered the ideas that could get down on the paper. This impeded the writing process and in turn caused a less than ideal score for the piece. The newer pieces took at minimum a week of thought and revision to get it all down to submit. While this assignment had less time than all the others, the nerves are no longer there, and it is more of a flow process that gets itself out of me.

During the photo essay assignment at the beginning of the course, I believed that would have been my easiest assignment due to the photography skills in my possession, yet as the date of submission grew closer, the more difficult it seemed to be; the photos were easy, yet the writing and explanation only became harder. It was suffocating and almost caused a dropping of the course, yet I persisted and got out of my comfort zone with writing first, then getting photos to match the paragraph. While it wasn’t the best work, it led to the start of a new writing style. During this assignment is when other class members would share their ideas and photos as well as their past essays. To be able to slowly improve, this cooperation led to multiple revisions towards the essay, and since rhetorical techniques were already known to me, it was just a matter of how to apply them into each and every essay to be able to sophisticate the writing so it’s no longer a high schooler’s level of writing. Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest” is what kept the growth going since those who don’t adapt don’t survive, and in the case of a college student, they will be stuck with subpar writing that puts them at a disadvantage compared to their fellow competitors. If I didn’t learn, I would remain subpar and be beaten out by other people in my major; with that disadvantage happening so early in my academic career, it would be detrimental. The only option was to adapt and improve so as not to be eaten.

During the last few essays of the course, it was required of us to bring some academic sources. While the lecture was boring, I will admit it became extremely useful since from then on it clicked that we all would need to cite more and more for the more difficult classes and for more finals. Beyond that, going into the STEM field, I will be obligated to do research papers. Having the skill and knowledge of finding credible academic sources and the databases to find them only puts me at an advantage compared to my peers. As the year progresses the class has left me with multiple skills that will transfer over later into my academic career and in the real world career along with the connections of my peers to be able to call upon them in later periods of life beyond simply the academic world, with the guidance i received in the class, it provided the resources to thrive in the foreseeable future with emails, essays, group presentations, projects, as well academic studies/papers, providing the opportunity to have sensible arguments, well crafted feedback, and a deeper understanding of the English literature as a whole giving a competitive edge towards myself in my academic career to be able to achieve what I desire in a timely manner.

To summarize my essay the experience I received during this course was immensely beneficial to the growth made in the personal and professional aspect of understanding my personal writing style giving myself a clarity that many others won’t get until later on in their academic careers, which receives my utmost gratitude for the lessons learned, the growth nurtured by my professor, for the peers who helped, and the course which gave me structure to be able to transfer more completely into an adult both in writing style and understanding which will only serve me more deeply in the future and can be seen in my current projects, to end off everything I learned in this class has served me immensely and will only continue to serve me in my academic journey and i only wish more people will get the same growth and experience i received through the duration of the course.