Growing up, I had always had the perception of English as that other language that I had to learn. As I made my way though middle school and then high school, it became more and more obvious that English was going to form an integral part of my academic and professional world. After coming to college in US, the degree with which I use English makes me feel as if it is my first language. Granted, I don’t possess the superior writing or reading skills most native speakers do, but there is nothing stopping me from working towards that skill set.

Management Communication 320 was that stepping stone in my life that made me recognize that potential leads to accomplishment; and potential, there is abundance. I had always considered myself a numbers’ person–you give me a complex equation, I’ll swing my magic wand and produce something fancy–and this feeling wasn’t so similar with words, unfortunately. So, I came to this class half hearted, reminding myself that this isn’t my domain–no home-court advantage.

Soon, I began recognizing the importance of everything we were being taught. I could see myself using all the tools of interviewing, memo-writing, and presenting in all stages of my professional career. This realization was the perfect motivation. For instance, PAR stories, worth 10 points to my class grade, yet worth so much more to my career development. This made me wish that if only all my classes could feel like this, I would be so much more dedicated.

I can surely say that the importance I used to give to writing has increased dramatically since I’ve taken this class. I have learnt to channel my writing skills towards producing better results; e.g., recognizing the purpose of writing, understanding the audience, using appropriate tone in writing etc. In the future, I’m certain that I will be required to write, even more than I anticipate now; probably not to the point of writing a novel (or maybe, who knows?), but definitely quite a lot. I’m certain that writing, or in the larger sense, communicating will form an essential part of my life. I hope that it is a learning process along the way, and that I keep improving my skills the more I do it.