Running Head: LITERACY – MY EXPERIENCE AND GOALS

Literacy – My Experience and Goals

Kevin Ye

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

BTW 250: Principles Bus Comm

Dr. Schering

September 13, 2023

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Literacy Narrative

For me, writing has always been unpleasant but unavoidable. Even when I put in the

effort, it feels like the words don’t come out correctly. Ever since I wrote a book for my

third-grade English class, I’ve held insecurities about my writing. It never felt developed enough

or descriptive enough for both my and the gradebook’s standards. It felt weird for me to read it

back, almost like listening to my voice playback through a video. As I grew older I tried to avoid

writing more and more, leading me down a career path away from writing. In school, math and

science made more sense, as they came with definitive answers and the ability to be objectively

correct. In STEM, growth was concrete, quantifiable, and everything my parents guided me to

pursue. It contained much less writing and many more numbers. It trained my brain to think

logically, steering me away from creativity and wild imagination. Since I was still in secondary

school, writing assignments were still forced upon me. Compared to elementary school,

however, they grew longer and became more frequent. The short, creative paragraphs became

long, argumentative essays, which did not make sense in my brain. Why do I have to explain

myself? Couldn't the reader just see the evidence and just extrapolate the reasoning? I was

closed-minded and ignorant to the necessity and power of writing.

Even after switching to an argumentative writing style in school, I never considered going

back to creative writing for myself. Through popular media, I always got the notion that

journaling was for girls and diaries were for Wimpy Kids. Though I did not have a medium to

document my frustrations, I didn’t face many great issues. There were no bullies on the

playground and I didn’t have any fights with my middle school friends. Instead of writing to

destress, I found it much more enjoyable to play the violin. Moments of frustration were followed

by aggressive Dvořák and moments of tranquility by calming Debussy. As I shifted to

destressing this way, my proficiency in writing deteriorated.

By the time I reached high school, the necessity to get an “A” barely drove my will to

write. Every lesson taught by an English teacher was a spinoff of something I’ve seen before,
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every assignment the same as the last. I was bored and uninspired. I stopped caring about

writing, and my grades reflected that.

Though writing felt like a burden, reading was not nearly as bad. Fantastic book series

and captivating books drew me in, making reading something I wanted to do. But like

everything, I enjoyed some more than others. As my grade level increased, Magic Tree House

became The Catcher in the Rye, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid became Romeo and Juliet. These

longer works didn’t capture my attention the same way the book series did. They felt hard to

read, hard to understand. Information was no longer given at face value, you had to

comprehend and draw conclusions. Instead of short works with constantly developing plots,

works felt drawn out as the plot growth became stagnant. Reading was now an assignment; you

had to do it even if you didn’t want to. We had to discuss character development, write

argumentative essays, and present reports. When something fun becomes mandated, my drive

to do it disappears.

As it relates to my major, I always operated under the assumption that reading and

writing weren’t necessary for my goals. I had never stopped to think about the consequences

that reading and writing would have on a computer programmer. This preconception was

changed only in the summer before my senior year of high school when I attended a session

from Shane Martinez, a solutions architect for AWS. At a summer program building the tech

future of Chicago, he expressed his experience with inarticulate workers in the tech industry and

constantly expressed the importance of emotional intelligence and self-expression. Through

anecdotes and reasoning, he argued that there was no point in knowing the answer if you

couldn’t convince your colleagues to believe you. As simple as it sounds now, this sparked my

journey into gaining eloquence in both my writing and speaking.

Applying to college made me further regret my neglect of writing. While learning how to

write the small series of essays, constant repetition of “show don’t tell” drilled my brain.

Understanding that these short essays were for me to present myself felt completely foreign to
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me, but it began to make sense. How better could I tell someone who I am? The admissions

officers couldn’t possibly interview thousands of applicants.

Now that I am in college as a Computer Engineering major, I realize that even here

writing exists in my future. When I do company research, my findings will be documented in a

paper. I have to know how to organize my data, explain my project, its findings, and its

implications. When I begin to work, I have to communicate with my colleagues professionally

and concisely through both emails and presentations.

In the rest of this semester, I hope to learn a structured and academically sound

approach to business writing. Throughout my next four years, I will apply it to the professors I

talk to, the research I do, and the internships I have. Past that, I will retain these skills to

maintain professionalism, have strong rhetoric, and be a competent writer in the real world.
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SUBJECT: Computer Engineering Freshman Seeking Advice

Dear Professor Gupta,

I am a freshman studying Computer Engineering here at UIUC emailing you to ask about your

experience and research at Facebook AI with SLAM algorithms and computer vision. Currently,

I’m motivated and interested in this topic and I am working on an introductory project involving

adapting and optimizing existing SLAM algorithms for usage with ToF sensors. I wanted to ask

you a few questions about your experience and the qualifications needed to join your research

group.

As a researcher, how was your experience different from your expectations? I understand that

you’ve been part of many publications. What are some important aspects of that writing? Are

there other types of writing that you face often? In addition to motivation, what classes or

projects would you be looking for in a prospective researcher?

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read and respond to this email. I am looking forward

to applying to your research group in the future.

Best regards,

Kevin Ye
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Date: Aug. 30, 2023

To: Dr. Schering

From: Kevin Ye

Subject: My Writing Strengths and Goals

I am writing to you to discuss my strengths as a writer in the tech industry and my goals for

improving. My journey with literature has not been the best, but I am keen on improving my

skills. In any corporate/work setting, emails and presentations need to be done with

professionalism and persuasion, which is why I am taking BTW 250 to improve upon my skills.

One of my writing strengths as a computer engineer is creating presentations. Throughout high

school, I have created numerous, including a presentation detailing a technology and how to

implement it for my Computer Science Club. Furthermore, I took the class AP Seminar, which

taught me to create professional presentations about researched topics. One of the subjects I

presented on was cybersecurity. In this presentation, I learned about slide design and delivery,

especially to an audience with little knowledge on the subject. Therefore, I am able to recognize

my audience in order to create a fitting and understandable project.

Another one of my strengths is creating unbiased research reports. Also in AP Seminar, I

created a research report on cybersecurity. This report taught me to synthesize multiple sources

and find common themes. Importantly, it required me to take an unbiased stance, presenting

information as it is and without any underlying arguments. As a computer engineer, this is

important when researching multiple approaches to solving an issue. It is necessary to present

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the pros and cons of each approach without skewing the audience’s opinion. That way, the

solution voted on is objectively the best and does not contain your subjective opinion.

By taking BTW 250, I expect to improve all aspects of my writing, namely my rhetorical skills,

professionalism, and presentational skills.

● To improve my rhetorical skills, I plan to read the articles and do the assignments

focusing on reader-centered writing. I want to be able to create compelling emails and

presentations convincing others to use my approach.

● To improve my professionalism, I will pay special attention to word choice, tone, and

titles when writing emails and making presentations. I want to maintain professionalism

and respect my co-workers and higher ups.

● To improve my presentational skills, I will both present more, prepare more, and have an

outline of what I’m going to say, rather than a script. I know that it will be hard to get

extremely comfortable public speaking, but I want to be comfortable taking charge and

presenting confidently.

Overall, my writing classes have been focused on arguments related to a literature topic. By

taking BTW 250, I hope to hone my skills in professionalism and rhetoric related to my major.