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Nick Martin
Caruso
Past writing
The most previous writing course I encountered in my college career was UWRT 110. In my
personal opinion, I acquired a new perspective and a better understanding of the curriculum and
an overall pretty good experience within the course. I believe most of my good experience came
from it being my first ever college writing course and that I was hoping to further my writing
skills under a new style of instruction. I found it enjoyable due to the new experience, new
people and the chance to learn things in a new way in a new setting. To be frank, I am not a
writer and I dislike writing in general. I do not consider it to be one of my strong suits and worry
about its effect on my college career and future jobs I may encounter. I believe I am a well-
rounded public speaker and feel more comfortable speaking but I sometimes fall short when it
comes to actual writing. I would rather dictate a subject to someone than write a paper, it just
seems to flow better and my understanding of speech is a much more advanced.
I made a lot of progress with my writing weaknesses in my last University Writing course and I
have found a way to get past my frustrations with writing even though I still find it extremely
tedious. Not to be rude to the people who enjoy writing but as I stated before, what is usually
written is probably better said. In my recent writing prompts and various other assignments, I
have covered many topics. With my major being Geology I mostly cover scientific pieces and it
is easier for me to write on a subject I know best if I do end up being required to write.
Considering the major path I have chosen to follow, a lot of my papers are usually in APA
format. The APA style of writing, annotating and citing was new to me because a lot of high
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schools only teach MLA format as a standard. Only learning MLA format, in my opinion, did not
prepare us for college and that is a concern of mine. How are we expected to earn accurate
grades and write to the best of our ability if we have not yet learned the fundamentals needed to
support us?
Though I speak negatively on my writing abilities I have found that there are many resources
available to me. I have not yet been able to visit these places due to my busy athletic schedule
but I plan on making good use of my required tutoring and study hall hours to take full advantage
of the help by other teachers, peers and collegiate experts. I am very happy with the fact that I
have so many people here to support me through my challenges and achievements. Throughout
my collegiate career here at UNC Charlotte, I hope to network and watch my resources and
support grow. I believe that by trusting my instincts and the people chosen to guide me, my
writing and other skills will show tremendous improvement.
I am very familiar with the Student Learning Outcomes because of past courses I was
immersed in over the summer. Having the same teacher helped me to focus on the similarities
and see the differences between the two courses. I have so far developed a better understanding
of the outcomes in application to the outside world. My goals for this class are to acquire
appropriate preparation for my next however many years college takes me and to come away
from this class with at least an A or B. I believe my goals are very achievable but what might get
in my way is my lack of effort, my girlfriend, football or any other social distractions. Being a
collegiate athlete, I have a very tight schedule every single day. My schedule consists of at least
three to four hours of football a day, academic requirements for football, and my normal class
schedule. With this tightly packed schedule I easily get side tracked or caught up in my many
responsibilities making it hard for me to keep up sometimes. One of the benefits of being a
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football players is that I have a team of graduate assistants and advisors to help guide me and
plan through my semesters on a weekly basis. Ms. Lisa is the academic advisor for us and since I
am on a full scholarship, she helps me a lot with stuff like getting my textbooks and other various
tasks so that I can focus.
