(E-Portfolio - 7) My First year experiences of writing difficulties in Engineering

“I didn’t expect it to be so different to high school”

Many students have difficulty transitioning from high school to university in their first year. It is well recognized that the whole new cultural experience of university, I need to learn a new academic discourse because writing at my university, National University of Singapore (NUS), is very different to the style of writing which I taught at my high school. One of the main problems facing first semester of my university life was learning to recognize and met my lecturers’, tutors’ and laboratory instructors’ expectations between subjects and often within subjects. I am sometimes lost in the middle of different lecturers of the same subject and also different tutors and demonstrators for tutorials and laboratory classes.

From my point of view, success in my university depends largely upon how quickly students adjust to the expectations of their lecturers, tutors and demonstrators. This adjustment skill especially links to writing skills. As we know writing is the most common medium among people. It will help assess my grasp of content of my courses. Even though lecturers, tutors and demonstrators make every effort to be consistent in requirements and assessment within subjects, it is unavoidable that there will be differences. For me, I came from a high school system where I had individual teachers for each subject and also the time and opportunity to know each of the teachers and their requirements. During my high school life, I always received continuous feedback from my teachers while this is not available at NUS.

During my first semester of university, I realized that when I write a technical essay, it is necessary for me to know both everyday ‘street’ and technical terminology. If I do not know how to write a particular issue, I normally consult my classmates or seniors. As a last resort, I make an appointment with respective lecturers or tutors. This is where I can get good advices and extra sources for my writings. For future improvement, I will try to attend all my lectures and tutorials classes without skipping them. If I don’t understand or am unclear about a particular issue, I will try to clarify with respective lecturers and tutors immediately.

In summary, I am more conscious of differences between writing tasks at university and my high school at the end of first semester. The main differences relate to structure or genre of writing material and knowledge of specific subject matter. As a future engineer, I hope to learn hard to master good technical writing so that I can communicate well with my colleagues. At last, it is also necessary to understand my writings for those who do not have engineering knowledge.