College Writing Survival Guide

           Coming into Springfield College as a freshman, I did not know what to expect from the

College Writing class my advisor had signed me up for. The title of the class “College Writing”

already made me think negatively of the class as I am not a huge fan of writing. So, a whole

class dedicated to writing did not seem like my type of class. Going into the first week, I was

pretty skeptical of how the class would go for the first semester. I knew no one in my class and

had little interest in writing essays, but to my surprise, the class was a lot better than I had

expected.  

            If I have to describe my first semester of College Writing, I would describe it as

enjoyable and educational. The course is a fun class in which you can express your creativity

through writing and in-class activities. You learn a lot about effective writing and learn how to

enhance your writing through focusing on new writing styles and focus points within the paper.

My writing over the course of the semester has improved greatly and my papers are now

stronger than they were at the beginning of the year. I found that the workload was about

average compared to my other classes. There are few assignments, but the assignments are

usually longer and take a good amount of time to complete. Luckily, we are given sufficient

time in order to complete the assignment effectively. The class time is used well, if you choose

to use it well. We are given a lot of time in class to get a good start on our assignments and do

useful activities to strengthen our writings, but if you do not participate and use your time

wisely, you are missing out on good opportunities to get better as a writer. Overall, College

Writing is a good class to take and you should be excited to take it and improve as a writer.

            Throughout the course of the semester, you may encounter some challenges. One

challenge that I faced was that at the beginning of the year, I would pick a topic for an essay

and then get stumped and not be able to write a sufficient amount for the essay. I would try to

keep writing on the same topic and would end up trying to write as much as possible, but the

content of my paper was not very strong because of it. As the semester went on, I learned that

it is okay to change topics if I am stumped on one and restart my paper. This way, I can start

fresh and my paper’s content can be stronger. Don’t be afraid to start fresh on a new topic if

you are stumped on your first one. Another challenge that I faced was balancing the classes

work with my other classes work. The key to doing this was to not procrastinate and to get as

much work done as possible as soon as possible. You will regret saving all of your work for the

night before an assignment is due and your paper will not be as good if you do it all at once.

Other than these challenges, the class is not extremely difficult, as long as you participate and

use your time wisely.

            There are a few keys to successfully getting through the first semester of College

Writing. My first piece of advice is to not procrastinate. Procrastination in this class will kill you

and add so much unnecessary stress. If you break the essay or assignment up into pieces and

complete the essay a bit at a time over the time you are given, you will be more successful.

Another piece of advice is to make an outline for your essay before you start writing. I have

found this to be one of the most helpful things for writing essays in not only College Writing,

but other classes as well. By making an outline, you can plan out what you are going to put in

your essay beforehand and make sure that you have sufficient information on your topic before

you commit to writing an essay about it. Another helpful hint is to use the Babson Library online

resource to find academic sources that can relate to your essay and make it stronger by adding

other people’s thoughts. My final piece of advice is participate in class discussions and peer

review sessions. If you participate in class discussions, you are learning from your classmates

and can use things you learn from them for yourself. During peer review sessions, give good

feedback to your classmates so that they will give you good feedback in return. If you hand a

classmate back their paper with little to no feedback and edits on it, you can’t expect helpful

 eedback in return. If you follow the directions and manage your time wisely, College Writing is

a fun and informational class that you will enjoy while becoming a better writer.