Intense Writing!

Hello, folks! This weeks post will be kind of short, because I have to squeeze it in between reading William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom for Literary Interpretation, doing research on Motivation and Emotion as it relates to health, and writing a 15 page paper on the discourse of the environmental destruction of Haiti for Latin Civilization II. So, because it’s on my mind, I thought I would talk a little bit about my opinion on one of Transy’s most notorious requirements—“writing intensive” classes. The phrase itself sounds borderline horrifying and reeks of the stress it will undoubtedly cause a lot of students—“writing intensive,” BUT, let me explain why this was a huge selling point for me on Transylvania University and why it’s not so bad after all.

Every leadership conference and career fair I’ve attended and every job description I’ve looked at has emphasized “effective communication,” and this is the greatest benefit that I have drawn from Transy’s writing intensive class requirement so far. I know that sounds tired, like a cop-out explanation of a scary-sounding requirement: “That’s what everyone says!” you’re probably saying, and you’re right, it is what everyone says, but at Transy, it’s the truth. From freshman year, Transylvania recognizes the fact that not every incoming student had the good fortune of attending a school that emphasized and taught the writing process effectively, so everyone starts over. The Foundations of Liberal arts I and II required classes help students prepare for college level critical reading, writing and research skills. As a student who entered college as a pretty strong writer, even I saw my writing skills improve significantly through this program, as I perfected the techniques of producing effective and eloquent arguments that I will carry with me the rest of my academic and professional career. And these techniques keep improving with every writing intensive class I take!

It kind of threw me off when I was writing papers for math classes (2 of them in calc II), but I quickly came to learn that if I could write a paper explaining how to use a Taylor series to solve a real life problem (I’m not a math person, for the record), I could pretty much communicate anything I wanted to anyone. As much as it stresses me out at times to know that I have multiple 15 page papers looming in the near future, nothing makes me feel more accomplished and nothing assures me that I will be more than prepared to continue my education or pursue nearly any career I want. Not to mention, we have an amazing writing center and wicked awesome professors who are always willing to help!