In this essay I will be discussing the projects I’ve worked on and make a self-assessment about the learning outcomes I’ve met by doing so.

For my Technical Description, I chose to write about an intel 4004 Central Processing Unit (CPU). I am a computer engineering student, so I am extremely enthusiastic about this subject. Firstly, I introduced the topic by talking about the origin of computers up to the first Intel CPU chip, the Intel 4004, then I gave an overview of how the CPU works and started going over every component of the CPU and how they work. I also provided a glossary and my references. The essay is formal and has a lot of technical lingo, but it was written in an inviting manner, such that, readers at any level could read and understand it. The glossary was a tool that I wasn’t used to using that really facilitated that, being able to explain terms outside of the text keeps the flow intact, the reader interested, and if the reader isn’t familiar with a technical term, he/she could simply look it up on the glossary for a quick definition. It was my first time writing a technical paper in a more accessible manner and I’m glad I did so.

For my Rhetorical Analysis, I found two laboratory reports, at college level, then I moved on to read, annotate and summarize both reports. Once I had that, I started comparing both reports by comparing all of their components. I had to analyze the style of writing and see if both of them were written in a professional manner. I’ve written many laboratory reports over my  3 years in college so I’m used to the terms and language used, but I had never analyzed the structure of the lab report before and it was incredibly interesting to see how you can write two laboratory reports in completely different ways, but still be professional and write a proper report. It was also the first time in this class that I used databases to find my sources.

For the engineering proposal, we proposed a smart street parking system for the city of New York. Everyone in the group is a computer engineering major and the proposal aligns perfectly with our studies. Once we’ve decided on the proposal, we all did research and looked for scientific papers to use as sources, then, in a meeting, we came up with the outline of our project and assigned each member a section to write. I wrote about other methods that are used to decrease traffic and the time looking for parking. Specifically, I wrote about the car rotation system in Brazil and the congestion charge in London. Finally, when every member was done with its part, I was also in charge to go over the paper and check for any disconnected sections, grammar mistakes, repetition, and to give its final formatting.

This project was a great opportunity to work in a team, we were all able to discuss and decide on a topic together. Moreover, we all were able to delegate our strong and weak points and help each other with our shortcomings. The research that we did for the project was focused on using CCNY’s library databases and research papers that were written about the topic. Personally, it was my first time revising and formatting a paper written by more than two people and to have to connect sections that were written differently was a big challenge. Nonetheless, I believe we were able to make a tangible proposal for our project even including predictions of cost, time and labor involved to implement our solution.