During my time in English 470, I have learned skills that differ from any other class I have taken while at Longwood. A class based on learning the ways of the professional world was unbeknownst to me, but it turned out to be extremely beneficial. As future members of the working environment, we all want to know how to conduct ourselves professionally because that is required of us. In this class, we were shown how to create the proper documents needed to thrive in this setting that will soon be upon us. I know personally that I will have to create many emails, memos, and presentations as a school counselor, thus this class was beneficial.
There are three transferable skills from this course that I find most useable in my new job. The first is being able to write concisely, which was conducted in the many professional documents I wrote. As someone who will be conducting discourse via email very frequently, I need to know how to get to the point of what I am trying to say. Teachers and staff reading my emails are not going to have the time it takes to fish through useless text until they get to the real information. The second skill is the ability to speak effectively, which was carried out by the Ted Talk and Formal Report presentations I gave during the semester. I did not know this before I started my internship this year, but school counselors give quite a few professional development presentations. Because of this, I need to be able to inform my peers while also keeping their attention. They are required to stay after work or come in on a day off for these presentations, so I need to make sure that I deliver them well and they are entertaining enough to keep eyes and ears on me. The third and last skill is being able to listen attentively. This is arguably the most important aspect of the job as a school counselor. Having to actively engage in peer presentations during the semester helped me practice these listening skills and prepare myself to give students my full attention. They count on me to hear their qualms and heal their pain; I need to be fully engaged at all times or they will lose trust in me.
The skills I mentioned are something that I will take with me throughout my Graduate School journey and then continued to a real job within a school system. I am thankful that I now have the ability to create different types of professional documents and have also acquired new abilities that will help my future. I hope every student gets the chance to take English 470 and learn from all of the course outcomes as I did.