Intermediate Composition
(for me, an intermediate composer)
Having taken two years away from any kind of English writing or interpretation course, I recognized the decline in the quality of my writing by fall of 2019. On the advice of my sister, a UC alum, I enrolled in Gary Vaughn's Intermediate Composition class for spring, not expecting the chaos that was to come: Spring 2020 was four months of the craziest year of my life (to date). Despite the in-person semester being cut short abruptly mid-March, Professor Vaughn adjusted quickly and brilliantly to online schooling.
I learned a lot about myself, my motivations, and my passions through the reflections this course required for my writing and thinking. I spent time re-evaluating how I think and work, as well as what literacies, genres and discourse communities speak to me. My writing this semester has varied between tennis, the approaching pandemic, and public health.
I was in an interesting position as I started writing about the spread and reaction to COVID-19 (then simply called the novel coronavirus) ravaging Wuhan, China. Initially, I had no idea exactly how badly this was going to affect the U.S. and the world, but the dots started connecting really quickly. Actively monitoring a live map of the coronavirus grow from the first 30,000 cases in China as it spread across the world was almost surreal, as well as addicting. Studying the U.S.'s response in the past, while watching the delay in policy from our government was very upsetting. I predicted we wouldn't finish the school year on campus, but I didn't expect it to happen before I even submitted that paper. I think that assignment may have inadvertently become the most influential bit of research to affect my view of this administration and the many shortcomings of our government right now.