I took this course during the second semester of my senior year, and I was a little nervous going into it because I didn’t know what to expect from a college-level English class. I took Composition One, but that course was about the same as all of the other English classes I had ever taken. But, with the help of my peers and Professor Hammet, I would say that I did pretty well. Through this course, I learned about absurdism and gun violence and improved my writing skills. 

I am at a point in my life where I am pondering what to do with it. As I ponder what to do with my life, I’m also looking at the purpose of my life and considering different philosophies about how to look at life in general. I am very thankful that absurdism was a big focus in this course because it provided me with a fresh perspective that I hadn’t really considered before. I got very interested in the nihilistic aspect but also the more optimistic aspect, which I researched for my second project. Researching Kurt Vonnegut really sparked my interest and prompted me to get Slaughterhouse-Five and read it. Vonnegut had a really unique outlook on existence and I adopted some of his ways of thinking because they made a lot of sense to me.

Another subject I learned about was gun violence through research on my first project. I always knew that it was a huge looming problem in America, but I had never dived into how big of a problem it actually is, what causes it, and how we can prevent it. For example, I had no idea how many guns were in the United States. Through my research, I found that for every one hundred Americans, there are one hundred twenty guns in the U.S. That is way more than I thought and I’m glad I now know so that I can better understand the problem. 

The first project also helped me become a better writer. In past English classes, I didn’t have to have many sources in one paper. But, in this class, I was pushed out of my comfort zone and I got better at synthesizing information from a variety of sources to make my argument more sound. Although, this brought up some issues, such as not parenthetically citing correctly, and not using enough direct quotes to support my claims. You can see the lack of citation in this sentence from my first project: “In Aaron Karp’s briefing paper, ‘Estimating Global Civilian-held Firearms Numbers,’ for every one hundred citizens in America, there are one hundred-twenty guns.” However, I did improve on these things in my second project. Proof of my improvement can be seen in this sentence in my second project: “This can be seen in a speech he gave, in which he said, ‘There’s only one rule that I know of, Goddamit, you’ve got to be kind!’ (Marino).” In my second project, these errors could still have been improved upon, but I definitely made progress and I’m proud of myself for it. 

 

Overall, I have enjoyed taking this course and I have improved as a writer because of it. I still have some work to do in some of the areas of my writing, but I am happy with the work that I’ve done and am thankful for the help provided by my peers and Professor Hammet.