Kaitlynn Bayne        

   

     I am Kaitlynn, a Sophomore here at the University of Michigan studying Biomolecular Sciences.  

I love science, food, traveling, and, of course, writing.  I hope that my future career can incorporate

all of my interests; however, I don't know how many food loving, traveling, scientific writers the

world needs.  With each year, I grow more and more fond of each of my interests.  

 

     One of the most difficult journeys I have had with this class was with my confidence. I would love to

say that everything was better after challenging myself in the course and coming up with coherent

pieces. Instead, it has actually made my confidence level rise and fall multiple times. Of course my

confidence level rose when people told me they really enjoyed what I wrote when I felt so vulnerable

with my attempt at writing something new. But, I never felt like I got any of them to be perfect. I’m

actually not a perfectionist in anything else but my writing. Since the class was so fast-paced and we

got many of the assignments back to back, I felt like I had to settle with good enough and I never had

the time to make my writing perfect. Although this made my confidence level drop, it was probably a

good thing, too.  I have learned to see the good in what I’ve done and I’ve stopped focusing on what

isn’t perfect about my writing.

 

     I have never enjoyed writing in a traditional way. Although I was good at it, I found writing academic pieces very dry and boring. To get over how boring these pieces were, I began to add my own artistic touch to my papers. As much as I would like to think my writing style was unique and different, it was also very formulaic when it came to academic writing. In most writing classes, the expected essay style is a five paragraph essay with an argument and examples to back the argument up. I got to the point where I had an exact style to my five paragraph essay: thought captivating, serious intro; funny punch line/ humorous take on the argument; serious follow up to previous paragraphs; then finally a conclusion with a casual tone. I mastered this formula, and would use it in every one of my writing assignments (after all, if it ain’t broken, why fix it?).

 

     This class has challenged me to step away from this formula. I was able to do whatever I wanted. I could have easily just kept with my formula- that would have been easy enough. Instead, I decided to explore different kinds of writing I had not tried before. This led me to write a real-time play by play of my thoughts when I am writing and attempt to write a children’s book. Even the blog posts we wrote for the class expanded my writing realm.

 

     Since experimenting in these new forms of writing, I have to ask myself, what has changed? The easy answer is my creativity. I never would have thought to write a children’s book before this class. Just coming up with the idea to write a children’s book was a burst of creativity for me. I remember getting the first prompt—I knew I could just go the traditional route and write one of my formulaic essays. But when we were told to try something new and not be afraid of failing, I felt like the way I could get the most out of this class was to do something way out of my comfort zone. Even after the rocky journey with my confidence, this class has helped me develop one very valuable trait that will help me with my writing, along with other aspects of my life: the willingness to try something new.