Reflection Memorandum

Alejandro Mendez

This assignment was the first letter assignment with formal writing and a letter to the head of CCNY based on the problems in this college. I have done letters to teachers but not too formal or having too many paragraphs in them. Although I wrote a letter back in freshman year of high school and that was my last time writing a letter, I have only seen recommendation letters or valentines letters. To me that is more informal writing but having to do this assignment would result in research and background information to support your statement. This is similar to an argumentative essay but summarized in a small version with paragraphs being alike to pages. 

My writing does tell a story at times, if there is enough description and detail it can become a story, a non-fictional one at best to keep the realism consistent in my writing. This demonstrates how I can write a good letter or a piece of literature and be consistent with how I write my pages. Sure there can be edits made and reviews, but my writing has improved over the years with words I haven’t used and mistakes I’ve learned not to do. In the end my writing is really good but there are flaws along the way which is something I’ll intend on improving to make sure my paper and my statements are understood. 

Honestly I wanted to see the criticism of my writing because I thought I did a decent job with the letter but then again I knew there was something wrong but I quite couldn’t figure it out. When I received a review of all my mistakes in my letter, I got back to work and tried to solve their criticisms by taking out certain sentences and adding more information. In order for the reader to understand what I am stating in my letter, I need to catch their attention with the first sentence and try to keep it short and well detailed. If I keep my readers attention with small paragraphs that are well detailed, then the person would want to collaborate as soon as they can. This objective is something I am willing to do moving forward towards future assignments and keeping in mind the wrongs and rights in my assignments.

Reflection Proposal

Alejandro Mendez

Writing for Engineering

The process for this project was pretty simple, I had to do my part by having to do research on what links I can use for this project and how it relates to this project. I just simply needed to organize the link alphabetically. The good thing about this project is that my group was able to agree on which person was doing what part and this was really helpful considering that some people won’t answer the phone or won’t attempt to communicate with the group. I also did the personnel part, which was pretty simple as well. In the end I managed to find useful links for our project alongside a small description. I wrote a small description because I looked at other examples that had small descriptions and I wanted to expand on these links by giving the reader a quick summary. 

I think me and my group tried our best to complete this assignment since we had other assignments to complete or prepare for certain tests, which would delay our work being completed. The good thing was that each of us was being understandable with our reasoning for doing the work late, after all college isn’t easy. Not to mention my group had to sometimes stay up all night just to complete this assignment, in the end we managed to complete it and get a decent grade. 

I believe my standards were met, since everyone did their part in the group project, even though we didn’t meet the teachers expectations. I feel like I could’ve done better if I had communicated with the teacher and would’ve managed my time properly, even if there was a deadline, I knew I could’ve organized my part more properly. Meanwhile for my other classmates, I believe they have done their job really well considering the amount of detailing they put into their sections, even though we didn’t state the problem, purpose or significance. 

I think we deserve the grade we got since the group’s assignment was submitted late and with errors we could’ve fixed it. These errors were demonstrated by the professor Metenko, who provided feedback on what my group did wrong and how we didn’t manage to meet his expectations. Reading these notes made me realize how we should’ve done this more quicker and tried to get feedback from the teacher sooner rather than later. I believe that with enough concentration I can complete any assignment, but I think my group just lacked motivation, even so this was not a suitable excuse, which is why I will try to be more thorough with the group project and communicate with the teacher if there can be an extension for it. I just thought my group would have completed this assignment before the due date, but I think I was too confident in this belief. 

A goal I want to have for my next group assignment or any group assignment is to communicate with the teacher and reach out for any feedback. Not to mention try and lock in with my other classes and manage my time properly because in my opinion to be an engineer there needs to be a focused mindset and manage time properly by having certain projects completed by certain deadlines. I know I can do this, I have gotten this far, it’s just a matter of time on improving these skills and mindset.