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Nabeel Solehdin
Professor Corri Ditch
English 114 A
9 December 2014
My Journey
The journey of my writing began on the 26th of August. On the first day of school, I knew
college was going to be a tough ride but I was ready to fasten my seatbelt and take the challenge.
In high school, I took AP English classes which essentially prepared me for college so my
expectations of writing was established but what I didnt expect was the death of my dear friend,
the 5 paragraph essay. The only thing I didnt like about writing was the murder of my friend the
5 paragraph essay but my favorite thing about college writing was his reincarnated form of many
paragraphs. Having more than 5 paragraphs allows me to express more than one topic in relation
to a thesis which allows me to continue a flow in my writing instead of a forced 5 paragraphs.
From my previous experience in college writing from high school, I was already aware of
many terms such as ethos, pathos, and logos but in the fall term of 2014 at CSUN, new concepts
arose in the course which sparked my interest. In high school, I would be given random topics to
write about and given not enough research but the topic of gender construction played a great
base for my writing in college because it was easy to grasp the concept and continually write
about it. I was already exposed to argumentation essays but my first argumentation essay
confused me because I had to add more specific to my argument. The one thing I enjoyed the

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most about college writing is how specific I had to be because it creates a challenge in how I
word and present an argument.
Many challenges arose in my writing style such as procrastination because I would
procrastinate in high school but in college it changed me. I would have to make sure I am
prepared at any circumstance to write an essay or present a topic because I knew I would start to
fall behind. People who end up falling behind could possibly drop out of college and I payed
good money for school so I was motivated to try my best in order to never get the idea of
dropping out. College is a choice not a requirement so might as well turn everything in on time. I
tried as hard as I could to keep myself on top of my game this year and to break a bad habit that
was formed in high school. One strength I picked up in my writing was transitioning because I
used to be terrible at transitioning but the LRC told me otherwise in my college writing which
made me proud of my writing improvements. I still need to work on strengthening my thesis and
continue to have a better counter claim to my argument. Grammar is also another issue because I
know how grammar works but the problem is that my thoughts flow and I forget to fix all my
grammar errors. The only advice I would have to give to a new writer would be to plan out
according and dont wait till the last minute.
In the end, this course became the beginning base of my college writing and it will
continue to grow as I progress to more complicated courses. The challenge that this class
presented made it easy to give up but striving to overcome that challenge is what makes a person
have a growth mindset. Kaizen; continue to improve.