text: Course Reflection: my Growth in English and my Computer Science Major
  This is my second semester at Estrella Mountain Community College, and over my stay in this institution, I have grown and learned more than I ever thought was possible. I came to this school from La Joya high school, where I graduated and got my diploma. Already having in mind what my future entails, I majored in Computer Science. The first English class I took here at Estrella was English 101, and it taught me so much about the English language and how to express my thoughts in words.
  I have learned how to express myself, think for myself, and do more research on topics I don’t know. This is a big step for me because I am still in the process of learning the English Language, and this class is set as a motivational tool for this class is making sure I pass all of my classes with good grades and also graduate on time.
  My Growth in English
  Computer science is a major where the English language plays a vital role. To be able to create programs and tell them what to do, I need English. Basically, in all works of life and where ever I go, the English language is needed. Moreover, in years to come, I want to be able to create my own website and a blogging page where I can post articles on a daily base and advertise other companies. The reason I chose this class was that by the end of all the writing projects, I would be able to write a quality paper and do research on my own. To be a good programmer, I must be able to write a full report on the code I create and explain it to others thoroughly, and I believe by the end of this course, I will be able to do that.
  My ability to express my ideas and knowledge has grown stronger. I always struggled to put my thoughts on paper in a correct manner. I was told a couple of times to reorganize my thoughts and provide more support to the examples I give, which I have worked on and improved my last semester. I remember writing bland and short papers in high school and the begging of my first semester at EMCC. This was a hard pill to swallow, knowing that my paper wasn’t good enough and I lacked the ability to do better. In my early papers, I would just restate ideas I heard in class and what I found when doing my research. I didn’t put extra effort into formulating my own ideas and supporting them with the works of my peers.
  Writing a lengthy paper has always been a weakness for me for a long time now. It has always been a challenging step past high school, six-paragraph essay forms that contained my ideas for so long. But English 101 helped me beat my fear and opened my mind. My thoughts are now developed because I learned how to support a logical argument in an efficient style. I have also learned to point out complexities within a text. Learning how to find peer-reviewed articles has widened the scope of my research, which has led to writing constructive papers, and I could say my writing has improved compared to high school.
  - “Elements of Style” by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White