Entering the City College of New York was like entering a new world for me. Moving from a small town in Long Island to the big city was a crazy transition but the integration into the academic world of college wasn’t to bad with the help of my professors.

In my first semester English class I learned a lot more than expected. I enrolled in the FIQWS class Writing About Iranian Cinema of which was a great option. In the writing section of it I learned how to become a great writer with tactics such as discrediting previous sources, knowing my audience and creating a sense of urgency in my paper and title. In order to discredit a source I learned how to create my own definitions in order to show my grave knowledge on the topic at hand. Pointing out discrepancies in sources or disagreeing with someone will also prove my understanding of the topic. You can also show the negative side of another writers proposal.

We spent some time talking about our audience as well, of which is a very important part of writing. Knowing, connecting and understanding you audience is a key writing tool. Your piece will never be known if you don’t have a target audience. Another critical point about writing I learned is how to create a sense of urgency in your piece. This can be shown through a strong, capturing title and a well thought out research question. Constructing a strong questions can aid in getting the attention your piece needs. After that you need to be prepared to explain why our essay questions is useful and should be recognized. Purely stating your questions wont cut it, you need to be able to give a multiple reasons as to why its important. As well as having multiple answers for your questions.

Another thing we spoke about in class was how to find the right sources for your paper. Obviously websites such as Wikipedia and .coms were out of the questions therefore our professor showed us where and how to access good sources. I was taught something I never really knew about in High School, databases. I couldn’t believe I was just being introduced to these but I’m glad I was. Finding good peer-reviewed sources for your research paper is very important because it will provide you with accurate information that you can source in your paper to enhance.

After learning all of this I was able to produce a final paper that included all of the above. I was extremely happy to hear tat we wouldn’t be going over grammar and high school material but instead I learned new tools I can use in my everyday writing. Although we didn’t necessarily learn about grammar and punctuation, if there was an astounding wrong doing in my paper my professor obviously corrected and helped me with it. All in all I learned more than I ever expected in my freshman English course of which I would take again if I could.