Question about undergraduate English

[hublot]

Hello,

I am a bit nervous about how English is going to be for me during my freshman year of college. I am not the best at English. Currently, I find myself going to meet my English teacher for help on essays; this is the only way I have been able to manage an A in the class. During college, from the start do professors just give you work to do and expect you to do it on your own? Would it be possible to keep meeting them during their office hours, so I can get an A in the course? I feel like English might ruin my gpa, so I am worried. Any advice will help. Thank you.

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[LacrosseFit]

Depends if you are referring to issues of English composition (writing essays and papers) or English comprehension and conversation (i.e. is English a second language for you)?

 

[Geo16]

What's the course title? Like LacrosseFit said, it does depend on which English course it is.
Like Geometry vs Algebra

 

[medDaisuki]

You should be fine. Go to the writing center.


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[Geo16]

You should be fine. Go to the writing center.

Yeah, was going to give this advice as well. Confident that this will help!

 

[Wiesal]

If you are taking a regular, non-remedial first semester English course, you are given work (writing full essays) off the bat in my experience.

 

[hublot]

@LacrosseFit Hey, I am talking about English composition, sorry about the confusion. @Geo16 the course title is: English 001

 

[hublot]

advice?

 

[Geo16]

advice?

How did I miss this notification? Must've opened few tabs and closed it.
I took two Eng composition courses at CC and got an A. One more lit. course to demonstrate good skills in English.
3-A's in English- was very nervous like you.

From my experience, follow the professor's format and just write the essays. You don't have to craft a beautiful piece.
If you follow the criteria they give you and if you have another person to look at your paper (writing lab, tutoring center) you'll do great.
For me, I am not good at English (if you read my previous posts, they are a mess). But knowing how to write a paper is different.

Use Writing Center, Tutoring/Learning Center! You paid for your tuition and you should use it.
They won't spoon-feed you an A- (like, would they rewrite significant portion of your essay) but surely won't let you head-first into the ground at least.
Like they would catch your formatting errors, grammar errors and stuff like that. Run-ons, awkward structure, etc.
They can give suggestions on how to write your paper or fix your paper.
Also, most writing center/tutoring center helpers are students who already took your courses. They'll notice once they see your paper.
(I used writing lab as a requirement for one remedial English course before taking that Eng 101. I thought had enough hours, but got an NP mark for not completing enough hours.)

 

[Dandine]

As someone who loves writing but had trouble with the format of writing classes, really cannot stress enough writing centers and meeting with professors (did more the former than the latter personally, but what you are doing now with office hours seems to be working for you).

Most of the writing center tutors will have probably either taken or taught an intro English comp class so will definitely have an idea of how to approach the goal of the course, which is to critically answer prompts or shape the topic that you want to write about. The ones I had were very patient and willing to meet me at whatever stage I was with writing and guiding what I wanted to get out of my topic.

English comp is hard but it's doable to do well in and you seem to have an idea of what works for you. Best of luck!

 

[WedgeDawg]

There's always the opportunity to talk to your professors about your writing, but hopefully as you progress in your college career, you'll understand how the feedback you solicit for previous essays can help sharpen your writing in future ones and you'll become more confident as a writer. That's really the overarching purpose of writing in college anyway.