Introduction
My expectations for what “Writing for Engineering” was about were very different from what I did in this course. I was expecting to observe engineering from a more creative and literary perspective, however “Writing For Engineers” was more technical than I expected, and gave me a lot of insight on engineering as a career. An engineering career is commonly associated with building products and fixing problems using your knowledge of engineering. However, the work behind documenting your process is overlooked, and documents such as technical guides and project proposals are taken for granted.
Similar to how literature has rhetorical elements to make their work enjoyable, technical writing has rhetorical elements to make their work purposeful and sell the point of the document. For example, in our writing proposal, it was important to distinguish the rhetorical elements of technical writing and understand them in the context of an engineering proposal so that we can sell our proposal as best as we can. Of course, it came with challenges due to the group’s inexperience in engineering, however writing the proposal gave us an insight on something we wouldn’t have picked up in a typical engineering course.
With the pandemic and Ramadan, this class was certainly difficult to keep up with. Not only was the material something that was completely different from other literary/engineering courses, but I was also forced to learn in a setting that I wasn’t comfortable with. For some, online school is ideal, but from personal experience, I can say that online school is not for everyone. Despite this, Writing for Engineering has taught me a lot and helped me think about engineering in a new light.
