Melson Heo

Self Assessment

Date Received: 5/20/20

Professor Michael Coopola

Styles are very unique, whether it is coming from a writer’s perspective or an artist’s perspective, it is all distinct when comparing but follows a particular structure. It all resides in the foundation of their work and how they can improve on it as their careers start to progress. For writing for engineering, this was my foundation for my career. I came into college desired to become a computer engineer and wanted to acquire knowledge into how I can communicate in business casual and with coworkers. While learning the knowledge and fundamentals of becoming an engineer is important, writing is an important component within the engineering field and how they communicate is through writing.

In the beginning of class, we began with the resume and cover letter. At hindsight, it seemed very basic and mundane as all jobs require resumes and cover letters. Resumes and cover letters were concepts that I learned back at high school so applying the knowledge in this case for these assignments were something I had to do. As I gave my resume and cover letter to my peers, I considered my resume and cover letter to be all in set and stone. However after receiving it back from my peers, I had some critiques which came to my surprise. With some editing to my paper and some addition, I completed my first assignment.

After the first assignment, the next two assignments were about memos based on two different topics. The two topics were ethics and lab reports. First, there was ethics. For any companies that desire to hire other people and show the regulations of their company, the companies lay out their code of conduct. By following the company’s code of conduct, the work environment can run smoothly and efficiently. In this case, I chose Google’s code of conduct to evaluate within a business memo format. While going through Google’s code of conduct, I realized that most of the conduct was ethical. However, it was not all “perfect”. There were some things that I discovered that were unethical. One example that I have discovered was the dog policy. The dog policy only allowed dogs in the workplace but not cats for some reason. Therefore, I found it very unethical that the company does not condone cats but only dogs which is a bias for people who adore cats over dogs. There were some other examples but those were put in the business memo format.

Then, there were the lab reports to compare. Due to my major being computer engineering, I had to find two lab reports relating to computers or programming. Lab reports are any experiments that are recorded and analyzed in a report form. Finding the two lab reports was a hard process due to limited resources. After finding the two lab reports. I had to compare them in a business memo format. After comparing the two lab reports in the business memo format, I learned how descriptive and analytical a lab report can be, showing the strengths and the flaws of the experiment despite being carried out. 

Then there was the technical descriptions and instructions. At first, I used coding as part of the technical descriptions and instructions. As passionate as it was, coding was something that can only be done on the computer, not tangible. So, I had to come up with something else. I used the building of computers as a result. Building your own PC is a cheaper alternative so I layed out the components and the process of building a PC. Besides, building a PC will give a wonderful experience while learning something new to new users to PC builders.

Then there was the final project. The final project for this class was a business proposal to the real world. Due to my group having related majors with me, we had to come up with something relating to computer engineering. Cybersecurity was the topic to go. Cybersecurity is an important factor to technology and keeps us protected. By planning out the essentials of the company and how it was able to run. This proposal has taught me how to communicate with other peers relating to my major and ideas on how to build a company from scratch.

Overall, this class has taught me a lot of fundamentals such as writing communications and formations. There is a general format that goes around businesses such as memos and resumes. With acquiring the business formats, I was able to learn what is important to keep within the paper and what is more important to say during an interview. The most valuable lesson that I got from this class is to direct, no one wants to hear a long lecture during an interview. Writing for engineering was a great class for my career, teaching me various things to apply to my business.