Personal Essay Sample: My Writing Experiences in High School and College

My Writing Experiences in High School

High school essay writing was not a memorable experience most of the time despite the fact that Mr. Greens English class was fascinating and helpful in his techniques. The teacher used music and writing to help create an atmosphere that was a bit friendly. For example, Mr. Green used to allow us five minutes to write something and then pass the book to the next person to continue writing, and it would go on and on until everybody got the chance. However, in my twelfth grade with Mr. Eiholtz as my English class teacher, essay writing began to be a bit complicated. The teacher would ask us to write research papers that were followed with stringent rules. The work had to be formal writing without any contractions.

What I thought academic writing was

During that time I felt that academic writing was only about searching for sources in search engines like Google and making sure that the page was filled with words. I also thought that the essays did not have to be formal. I did not take any serious measures to avoid plagiarism and therefore my work used to be wholly plagiarized.

Writing experiences in College

Writing experiences in college was very different from high school. There was a lot of expectations form writing. For example, instructions are given on a full page or two, and the work has stringent deadlines that ought to be followed to the later. Prof. Bucho, our English instructor, would give us seven versions of a story not interesting and would expect us to analyze it and after that, we would be graded as F--, F++. During that time, nothing used to work for me, and I found academic writing to be very hard and demanding. Fortunately, with time, I was able to devise my techniques of coping and understanding academic writing, and they sure worked for me.

Academic writing in College

Academic writing in college is very formal, and plagiarism is taken very seriously. As such, one can be penalized in the paper as a result of plagiarism. The work must follow all the instructions and must be submitted in the period specified. Academic writing is essentially judged on the premise of its evidence, and there is an application of different methods of highlighting data. A college student is confronted by many academic writing challenges. For example, a writer may not know when to use the first person or third person in writing. Even though I have just started my composition course in college, I can confidently say that there is a lot of work ahead and a lot is expected from me.

Conclusion

I firmly believe that my college writing course will work out for me because from this point I can express myself better as compared to before. The college professor seems to be strict but sounds fairer than others, and therefore I feel that I can learn a lot from the professor. Today I am happy that I can be able to proofread work from a professional editor. After taking at least three different writing courses, college writing has not been the same anymore. Generating and brainstorming ideas has become easier than before. As a result, my papers are significantly longer, and the sentences flow with coherence.