Lessons

Professional Communication class has helped to get me used to a work environment. It has taught me to be critical of my work and make it more readable. It helped me to market ideas through public speaking and reports. It also helped me to market myself better for a job. Communications class has helped equip me for a professional occupation.

The extensive editing we did in PCom 132 showed me how bad my work is before it is edited. It showed me that the words I put my thoughts into don’t always read the same way I think. I need to make a habit of getting someone else to edit my work and editing critically.

Two valuable tools from Pcom 132 that help make writing more readable are the 3 C’s and PAFEO. Concision, clarity and coherence form a valuable checklist to keep writing understandable. PAFEO is a needed reminder to stay on topic, convincing, and relevant to the reader.

I definitely need practice public speaking, and the 5-minute presentations in Communications 142 have given me some much-needed practice, with useful criticism to help make my speaking better. Preparing for the large presentation has been a useful experience, and presenting it will be also.

Before technical communication class, my resume writing was terrible. I learned the format in high school, but I didn’t learn how to promote myself. My resume still needs work, but Pcom 132 showed me what’s wrong with it and gave me some tools to make it better.

Communications also familiarized me with memo write-ups, internet research, and blogs. It helped me get to know my class better, and taught me how much time you can waste on blogger.com.

Overall, Professional Communication has taught me three very important lessons:
1) Don’t get a job that requires report writing
2) Leave English grammar to the Brits
3) Leave public speaking to Mr Bean