Writing and research was a class that I thought I was going to dislike and be a waste of my time, however, I ended up really enjoying the class.  While I mostly already knew the content being learned, I believe it still helped me grow as a writer and as a person.  Some of the prompts were abstract and forced me to think outside of the box which I have always struggled with.  The short stories and books we read were entertaining as well as insightful.  They brought up concepts about the world and about human-kind that allowed students to connect our material to the outside world.  The assignments were challenging enough to where they made me think, but didn’t overwhelm me as it was my first semester at college.

Below is an oral presentation I did for this course.  I chose to present about oil spills and how to prevent them with technology and inventions.  This assignment forced me to utilize Longwood’s databases and other library resources for the first time and allowed me to become comfortable with them.  It also helped with my presentation skills and public speaking.