Ever since my schooling days from Primary school to
Secondary school, my command of English had not been the best. I always hated
writing compositions because it was such a long process. The planning of ideas,
the choice of words and finally writing them down in an interesting manner
takes up so much time. The main goal that was always in my mind when writing
compositions was to hit the word limit so I avoided writing lesser than i was
requested in examinations.
Following that i went to Polytechnic in a design-related
course called Landscape Architecture. It was not a writing intensive course but we
were still required to write essays on theories of Landscape Design. I was
happy as i left the academic field of study to a design field of study. However
in the second year of my course, we had to take this module called "Report
Writing and Presentation" to train us in our skills of writing reports. I remembered clearly that it was one of the modules that i dreaded the most. We
were introduced to many things such as report layouts, citations and writing a
CV. I must say that throughout the entire module, I was just going through
motion and submitted everything that was required without learning much from
the lecturer. Not long after, I regretted not giving much attention to the
materials taught because I had to complete a report which was part of my design
work. As a result, the report was not done in a correct manner and layout which
resulted in me receiving a low grade for it.
Coming on to University, I was taken aback by the
amount of academic work that was required of us even though I was still in a
design-related degree. During the first semester, I had a total of three essays
and a report from all of my modules. I realised that I was not equipped with
the skills some of my course-mates possessed like the skills of approaching and
writing an academic essay. It was an uphill task for me but nevertheless with
the help of some of my course-mates and my friends that I was able to pull
through. I believe that it was not the best of effort and I could have definitely
done better. Now that I am enrolled in ES1102, I hope to learn as much skills
that are required to prepare me for the remaining years of study in NUS.
