From the moment we walked into class up until the moment we stepped out for the last time, Professor Bubrow was preparing us for “What’s out there”. Well, “What is out there?” you may ask. Out there is the real world. Every assignment that was given was assigned in order to prepare students for what’s to come in their future lives as professionals in a modern day work setting. It helped me improve my skills as a researcher, as a speaker, and most importantly as a writer. At the beginning of class, Mr.B asked us what our weakpoints was; my weakpoints were citing evidence appropriately and research papers. At the end of this class not only have I overcome this weakpoint, but I have also made it a strongsuit. This class helped me improve on my imperfections as a writer that will later on hopefully be able translate professionally to pursue a job in Computer Science.

The first assignment that we had to complete was the introductory paragraph about ourselves. For me, finding interesting things about myself to relay to other people is very difficult. This assignement helped give some self reflection about who I am as a person and what I like to do in my free time. It was a rather informal writing assignment, but in my opinion that is what gave the assignment so much authenticity. By having the liberty to write about yourself without the restraints of “does this fit the criteria” helps give a more real feel to the piece. This applies to the real world because in every job interview that you attend, you must be able to talk about who you are, your interests, what you have done, and what you plan to do in the future.

The next assignment was the resume and cover letter assignment. We had to create a resume, find a job posting, and apply to the job using a cover letter. Before this assignment I had no idea what a cover letter even was. This is real world application at its finest; could you believe that after college I wouldn’t know how to formally apply to a job? This assignment taught me a lot about Audience and Purpose. Knowing who your audience is and how to address your writing style to different groups of people is a very important skill to have as a writer. If I were to apply to a job but write as if I were writing to an old friend it will heavily impact the chance that I get an interview for said job. This brings me to my next point, why am I writing in the first place? Like I said previously, in this case I am writing in order to get a job. You have to write with a certain goal in mind in order to get what you want. If you appropriately address an audience but don’t write with why you’re writing in the first place then it will take you nowhere. These two things combined are important for future endeavors.

The third assignment was a lab report on the probability of dice. This assignment was the one I dreaded the most. I am very bad at writing in an organized fasion and lab reports are the one thing that you have to be very precise about. To do this assignment I used the power of technology in order to simulate the repetitive nature of this lab. I used a simple python code and the use of the “.random” library in order to replicate the idea of rolling a pair of dice 200 times. This works similarly because when rolling dice, you get a random number from one to six. To get an accurate representation of the probability of the dice, you must roll it a large number of times. To make my life easier, I simulated the dice rolling exercise and copied the data from the results. This assignment taught me how to organize my thoughts more accurately and also enabled me to levrage my skills as a computer science major and write a code that ultimately made the lab report much easier to do.

The group proposal task was the next assignment that I had lots of fun doing but it was easily the most stressful assignment. We discussed in class that one thing that CCNY lacks as a school is a social life for students. There isn’t a lounge/student center where a bunch of students can gather around and bond. The assignment tasked us to create groups which utilizes the course objective of collaboration and make a proposal to the school about why a Student Center is necessary and how to go about creating one. The assignment was fun because we got to use our creative expression in order to create something that would ultimately benefit the student body. It was challenging because coordinating with other group members is very difficult if you don’t have similar schedules. Not to mention everyone has something that they want to include into the project, so accommodating all those thoughts into one coherent project was hard. The course objective we used in order to complete this assignment was synthesis. Our project name was “Operation Synthesis” because we used information from various different sources in order to create our Student Center. In terms of structure, we took inspiration from Hunter College’s sky bridge connecting two different buildings together. Presenting the assignment was relatively easy. I consider myself to be a good public speaker so I enjoyed speaking our thoughts in the form of a presentation.

The technical description was the last assignment of the course and was very interesting. We had to choose a topic in order to research and present said research in class. The topic I chose was Artificial Intelligence. I chose AI because it is something that is very popular currently and it is something that I believe will become ubiquitous around the world. AI is also related to my major as a computer science student so it was like killing two birds with one stone. The course objective learned in this assignment was reading. While writing a technical description, it is important to research a topic accurately and thoroughly in order to provide reliable information while presenting. Like I previously mentioned, research papers are something that I find to be quite difficult, but after this assignment I believe that it has become a strength rather than a weakness. This is because I now know how to properly research a topic that I want to write about. With this comes the notion of what is a valid source and what is not. Presenting the assignment was again something that I believe I performed well at. After reading the comments about my presentation I noticed that people liked my enthusiasm about the project and found it engaging. The best way to make people understand while presenting a project is to put it in terms that the audience can understand while also being accurate and professional about the information you are providing and I believe that I accomplished that in my presentation.

Reflecting on this semester, it’s evident how much progress I’ve made in developing skills that will serve me well in the professional world. Each assignment challenged me to think critically, write effectively, and present confidently. From learning how to write with purpose in the resume and cover letter assignment, to organizing my thoughts in the dice probability lab report, to collaborating effectively with peers on the group proposal, I’ve gained practical experience that mirrors real-world scenarios. Most importantly, this course transformed my weaknesses into strengths. I entered the class struggling with research and citation, but I’m leaving with confidence in my ability to synthesize information, cite accurately, and craft professional, audience-specific documents. Each step, from research to presentation, reinforced the importance of preparation, adaptability, and effective communication. As I move forward in my academic and professional journey, I will carry the lessons learned in this class—whether drafting a report, collaborating with a team, or presenting a technical topic. This course has truly prepared me for “what’s out there,” equipping me with the tools to succeed in both my career and beyond.