A Writing Adventure

When I first realized how short this class was going to be, I worried about getting my work done on time. To my surprise, I found that the tight schedule actually helped me focus on my work. However, this didn’t stop me from gradually spending less time and effort on my work. Of course this meant that my first assignment was revised much more than the others. Although it could be because it was the only fictional assignment, and thus the one I enjoyed writing the most.

This first assignment was called Two Voices in which I was to write two papers on one event, each on a different point of view. One paper, Insanity and Brilliance, was written in a formal style while the other, A Pack of Liars, was written in an informal style. I spent more work revising those two papers than I did with my other assignments. I changed existing words to suit the style I was told to emulate. I also changed the order of my sentences to better lead one idea from the next. I even added a fragment or two into A Pack of Liars just to make it look more authentic. For example, “Devil creatures from hell in the basement.” Indeed, the greatest strength of that assignment was how authentic it seemed.

Conversely, the greatest weakness of the paper was that, in making it authentic, Insanity or Brilliance was too wordy and A Pack of Liars was too repetitive. Although the informal had a few mistakes such as, “To darn greedy…” the formal was devoid of spelling and grammar errors. What is lacking in was a decisive conclusion as is stated, “…I conclude that I shall look into this more carefully….” The reason for this was that I had revised the rest of the paragraphs three times already by the time that I had gotten to the final paragraph. By that time I just wanted to finish it.

The next assignment was my descriptive essay titled The Perfect Gift. In this paper I described my walk through a bazaar the day before Mother’s Day. The first draft on this paper was incomplete and lacked smooth transitions from one thought to the next. Upon finishing it everything had smooth transitions and a good sense of emotion, leading the reader successfully through the bazaar. Unfortunately, I had switched from present to past tense two paragraphs in. There were also some spelling errors, but the inconsistent tenses were the predominant mistake throughout.

The third assignment was one I had already encountered before in the 2007 Fall Semester: the Isearch paper. Unlike a research paper, an Isearch paper follows your personal journey towards discovering an answer. You give the dead ends and failures just as much weight as your successful attempts to gather information. My paper, A Major Dilemma, was written in an attempt to answer the question, “Should I dual major in Accounting and Computer Sciences?” The greatest part about this paper was that I solved a problem that had been dogging me ever since I started going to Delta. However, I barely revised it and only half of it was peer-read so many spelling mistakes were found.

My last assignment – not counting all the journals, in class writing, punctuation exercises, and this final exam – was a cause and effect paper I named The Effects of PC Gaming on My Life. This was a subject I was truly interested in, yet I couldn’t get away from my distractions long enough to write it well. I admit that this was the paper I spent the least amount of time on and most of it only completely revised once. Since it I made that paper so quickly, I suspect that there were a handful of spelling mistakes that I missed. However, it had a good introduction that had the human elements described in Chapter 21 of Writing Well. I took into account what my proofreaders suggested and hopefully made it satisfactory.

In conclusion, I learned a few tips on how to better my writing and perhaps guide others towards the right direction if they ask. This accelerated class also kept me from failing a second time and taught me that not all non-fiction writing is boring and dull. In fact, it helped me see writing, as a whole, in a new and better light. I may not become a famous author one day, but I will know the difference between a good writer and a bad one.

A Word's Voice

I knew that good sentences have a rhythm to them before reading On Writing Well; however, I call it the flow of a sentence. I refer to it often when looking over the creative writings of others. On the other hand, I don’t always know what to change it to. When I write I use the thesaurus within Word at least once every two sentences. It’s quite easy to access, although it doesn’t have the versatility or features of Roget’s Thesaurus. It can’t tell me what adjectives, adverbs, and verbs go best with a noun I’ve looked up. It doesn’t tell me if I used the wrong spelling of a word. However, it does give me to tools to correct it myself without flipping through a bunch of pages trying to find a word.

I’ve been asked to proofread things in Word before, but if I don’t limit myself to just writing down suggestions I can’t finish it. I find too many little things to fix and in the end I accidentally loose the author’s original voice. That is if I finish proofreading at all. I have a couple of documents on my computer right now that I promised to proofread, but didn’t finish doing so. With my new knowledge of what not to do I may look them over again and actually succeed in giving it back. It may be months late in coming, but at least it will be done and the writer can finally improve.

The Effects of PC-Gaming on My Life

My father introduced my brother and me to the wonders of the computer when I was four or five years old. Back then there was no mouse, no fancy background to the main screen, just a list of words on a menu that led to various games. Of course they probably led to other things as well, but I wasn’t to know that just yet. When I went to kindergarten a green-screened Apple computer sat in the corner of the room to be used as a learning tool and I enjoyed playing games on the computer just as much as doing a messy project with an easel and paint. To me, the computer was a source of entertainment; I didn’t realize I was learning anything.

The first PC game I can ever remember playing was Goofy’s Railway Express, created in 1991. It taught me how to count, recognize shapes, and follow instructions. At age nine I encountered games with better graphics and bigger ideas such as shown in the various educational games such as seen in the JumpStart and Dr. Brain series. Both are puzzle and problem-solving oriented and made me think through puzzles with logic. My favorite out of all of them was The Time Warp of Dr. Brain. In this game I got to solve increasingly challenging logic puzzles which would pose a challenge to me, even now. Just thinking about it makes me want to look through the old MS DOS games and play them all over again.

This leads me to a negative side-effect of computer gaming: obsession. Most games are very addicting once you become attached to the idea they present. When my parents finally gave me my own computer I barely left my room and I would have forgotten to eat if they hadn’t come in and told me to. In fact, there have been days quite recently where I’ve skipped lunch altogether and played the day away. Fortunately for me, I also had an appetite for watching cartoons so I eventually came downstairs to eat and watch a show.

When I entered middle and high school the games became an hindrance to my work, drawing me away when I should be doing some assignment and leaving me with a distaste for it overall. My grades took a major dive in High School, helped not only by my gaming, but also my reading habits. I’d go to the library and borrow five books each from a different series and then sit down and read them all, one after the other. It soon got to be that I couldn’t concentrate at home, leaving me with rushing to do work while I was still in the classroom.

Now the computer takes up most of my free time, but I have many non-electronic things in my room to pull me out of my gaming addiction. The most productive of these crafty distractions is my fascination with writing and in particular calligraphy. I’ll go downstairs and lay out some paper, ink, paint, brushes, and pens and make something that I later get praise for from my parents. I plan on doing more of these crafty sorts of things during summer, but the pull of gaming is quite strong in my now and will eventually pull me back in to a new game with a new idea.

A Major Dilemma

From an early age I have wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps. He has a good house, an okay job, and a versatile set of skills that lets him help many people in not only our extended family, but the state of Michigan as well. Some of those skills I have no hope in acquiring – such as mechanics, carpentry and, electrical wiring. However, I have picked up on his love for numbers as well as an aptitude for computers. If you were to ask me what my major is I would end up mumbling something like, “Accounting or Computer Sciences I guess.” While this may satisfy the answer, I am left feeling indecisive and unsure about my future. So my major question is, “Which should I major in: Accounting, Computer Sciences or both?” I chose Accounting because it is my father’s primary job since he audits many districts within both Upper and Lower Michigan and files taxes for much of the Tri-Valley Area. This is a dilemma in itself since I’m not sure if it’s truly what I want or what my father has molded me to be. Out of the two Computer Sciences is the one that will keep me perpetually interested. However, I don’t know which branch of computer sciences I am best suited for or will enjoy the most as a job.

My mother and I were sitting on the couch one day after coming home from work and college. Many people have mistaken us as sisters instead of mother and daughter; although she dyes her hair a light blond, while mine was a darker, dirty blond. Back then my hair was longer, cutting off at the shoulders, while hers was the same as it is now, short and fluffed on top. Anyway, I was worrying about my reasons for choosing my major, so I asked her, “I really can’t decide what I want to go into. Should I stay with Accounting, or switch to Web Design?” She amazed me by replying with, “Why don’t you do both? It would bring you better job security.” Of all the states in America, Michigan is the worst for job security so when I heard those two words preceded by “better” it caught my full attention. I knew right away that this would cost much more money than one major or even the traditional major and minor route would, yet I was enticed by the prospect (Kushion).

When I saw my counselor a few days later I brought the idea of it up and she was willing to write down some courses I could choose from for Fall Semester. Among them were basic courses I had yet to take as well as a list of Computer Science Technology classes to start with. From that list were the Windows Foundations, HTML, ecommerce, UNIX/LINIX, Network Essentials, Computer Programming I, and Visual BASIC Programming I classes. When I checked the online registrar I was able to cross off the ecommerce and Network Essentials classes because they weren’t offered in the Fall Semester. I knew that the Windows Foundations class would be very easy, but I couldn’t take the HTML one without taking the former first so now I was down to four. I didn’t want to take any classes dealing with Visual BASIC since my computers professor had hinted that it wouldn’t be offered in later years and would become outdated. I’m still not sure if that is true.

Since I’m not one to work at home because of distractions, I put off scheduling my Fall Semester classes. When Spring Session rolled around I had completely forgotten about scheduling for the fall and was quite busy with my college work. However, the first question that came to mind when I realized we were to write this paper was related to my college choices. As soon as I got the assignment, I went to the online databases and looked up what the media had to say about dual majoring. While looking I found that the starting salaries for Accounting and Computer Services Bachelor’s degrees were reasonably high ($40,993 and $46,275 respectively). They were not the highest on the chart (Engineering holding an average of $49,528), but they were higher than the lowest (Teaching at $33,000) by a fair margin (Cox, Matthews & Associates). This eased my mind a bit about how much I could potentially earn in the careers I want to go into.

I also found that, for the class of 2005, employers for accounting jobs came in second with employers of computer jobs coming in fourth. This is illustrated by these statistics: 3,000 employers for Marketing, 2,955 for Accounting, 1,000 for Management, and 700 each for Computer Sciences and Computer Engineering. Below that chart was another about the majors in demand. In said chart, Accounting took the lead with 9,375 followed by Marketing with 4,070, Management with 3,500, and Computer Science with 2,922 (iMinorities). I thought upon the significance of those numbers and came to the conclusion that the demand for Accounting was impressive and that Computer Sciences have more than likely raised in demand by now.

In another article I found in the database it discussed the pros and cons of a specific major verses a general one. In the words of Julia Barlow Sherlock, CMU career services director: “If you want to be an accountant, you need to major in accounting in order to acquire the necessary experience and skills.” I plan to do so since Accounting is the only business-related major I am interested in. Another quote I found in the article was by Scarlet Edwards, a WTCC counselor, in which he stated: “We tend to think that selecting a college major is the same as selecting a career. For most careers, however, there are several pathways or majors that can lead a student to a particular career.” This is true of the computer science career since I don’t have one part if it that I like in particular. Instead, I like the career field as a whole and wish to use it for more flexibility in a job. As a whole, this article helped set my mind at ease as to my choices in majors since one is specific and the other is general (Ezarik).

Wondering how many jobs there are in Michigan that is accounting and computers related, I went to Monster.com and looked for jobs in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. I found 1466 results from 20 occupations both Accounting and Computer related. Of those jobs 57 were in the Flint/Saginaw area, which is closest to where I live right now. All of these jobs need experience and some sort of degree before they will hire someone which I hope to have by the time I earn my bachelors. However, from the experience of my brother and his friend it is hard to find a job to get said experience. They have filled out about 50 job applications and have got none of them back. Furthermore, when they applied at the local McDonalds their applications went directly into the trash because the employees didn’t like them personally. I’m hoping to avoid this by having a degree to back up my applications, but this will mean that I won’t get a job until I get my first degree.

In conclusion, this search has helped to reinforce my choices in major. The greatest help in this search was the trasfer program lists I found at the Delta webpage and monster.com. I have decided that I will stick with double majoring and if I must, get an early job and scholarships to pay for it.

Works Cited

“SVSU Computer Sciences Transfer Program” Delta College. 18 April 2008. 11 June 2008.

Cox, Matthews & Associates. "Average starting salaries and ranges for selected majors by degree level, 2006-2007." Diverse Issues in Higher Education 24.20 (2007): 46(1). General OneFile database. Gale. Delta College Library. 21 May 2008.

Ezarik, Melissa M. "A major decision: should your choice of college major cover it all or be as specific as your goals?" Career World, a Weekly Reader publication 2007, April-May ed.: 20(5). General OneFile database. Gale. Delta College Library. 21 May 2008.

iMinorities, Inc. "The top 100 employers and the majors in demand for the class of 2005." The Black Collegian Feb 2005: 10(9). General OneFile database. Gale. Delta College Library. 21 May 2008

Kushion, Sally Lee. Personal Interview Heather Marie Kushion. 10 April 2008.

Monster. June 11, 2006 Monster Worldwide, Inc. 9 June 2008 <http://www.monster.com>.

Pritchard, Robert E, Gregory C Potter and Michael S Saccucci. "The selection of a business major: elements influencing student choice and implications for outcomes assessment." Journal of Education for Business 79.3 (2004): 152(5). General OneFile database. Gale. Delta College Library. 22 May 2008.

“SVSU Pre-Business Transfer Program” Delta College. 18 April 2008. 11 June 2008.