Second Prompt

After reading Chapter 1 of Hjortshoj's book, "The Transition to College Writing", I often found myself supporting many of his claims. Throughout my first semester as a college student, I had to learn how to be flexible with my time and be on high alert for incoming circumstances. I also had to learn many other successful skills, such as concrete studying skills, managing my studying locations, and the importance behind writing in a professional way. Personally, I thought my high school did a poor job in preparing me for college. My school made college seem like a haunting, and extremely difficult place, but after completing my first college semester, I can tell them it's not as extreme as they pronounce it to be. As the fall semester began, it wasn't very difficult to get my schedule mapped out and get myself organized to be as successful as I possibly could be. The semester went as great as I could ever imagine, as I managed to make the Dean's list, with a perfect 4.0 grade point average.

   In order to become a successful college student, you must become mastered with the three skills of listening, reading, and writing. In order to obtain these skills, you must practice them in your everyday routine. We began to master the skill of listening before we even attended school, and you may ask yourself why we need this skill? Listening is the building block to becoming a successful person, not just in college, but in everything you do. In order to move on to the other skills of reading and writing, listening must become a habit that becomes engraved into your mind. The skill of reading is learned next, as we begin to understand the language, as Hjortshoj describes in his book to be the most important factor of a successful college student. Reading is a necessity, as in order to become a good listener, we must know what the words mean in retrospect. If we obtain good listening skills, then must begin to master the skill of reading, in order to fully understand the language, we are listening to. The final skill, writing, is the skill that brings listening and reading together. In order to be a good writer, we must understand the language of our listeners, and the factors that involve the reading scenario. That's the story that connects the three factors together, as in order to be a successful writer, you must understand the language as a listener, and as a reader. I think the role of including a first-year writing course in college, is to get the student familiar with the format, and overall difference between the style of high school writing, to college-based writing. Hopefully by providing a college writing course to all freshman students, they will become comfortable with the new style of writing and begin their transition into a whole new world of professional based literature.