Welcome to my e-Portfolio! My name is Andrew Leite, and this is my first review of a year in college, a look back not only at what I have learned, but how I learned it, and what I did with the knowledge I gained.
The creation of this site marks the end of my freshman year at Penn State, and I have grown and changed not only academically but in how I approach many other aspects of my life, my work in particular. In working and striving towards an English major, with a particular focus on creative writing, I have always had my personal attitude towards how I write and how I get the ideas from my mind to the page. The process for me was always more a matter of personal stake in a project, my own inspiration, and generally needing the right amount of personal motivation for my writing to have the quality that I really think it deserves. Since writing has always been easy for me, my essays for school were usually very direct and bare, unless the subject particularly invigorated my imagination. I would usually make the conscious decision to separate and save the inspired ideas and stylistic effort for the pieces over which I have more control and in which I invest more creative strength.
The creation of this site marks the end of my freshman year at Penn State, and I have grown and changed not only academically but in how I approach many other aspects of my life, my work in particular. In working and striving towards an English major, with a particular focus on creative writing, I have always had my personal attitude towards how I write and how I get the ideas from my mind to the page. The process for me was always more a matter of personal stake in a project, my own inspiration, and generally needing the right amount of personal motivation for my writing to have the quality that I really think it deserves. Since writing has always been easy for me, my essays for school were usually very direct and bare, unless the subject particularly invigorated my imagination. I would usually make the conscious decision to separate and save the inspired ideas and stylistic effort for the pieces over which I have more control and in which I invest more creative strength.
It was not truly until my senior year of high school, in my Humanities class, when I realized that essays in higher education and professional situations, only an essay charged with both informational and creative strength will carry weight beyond the mere facility of a report. This revelation, though now it seems obvious, greatly impacted the way I write today, both for school and for recreation. Just one assignment and I suddenly matured in my medium, acknowledging that literature in the professional world is neither just about my standards or the standards of other people. Both are critical to simultaneously prove a point and make it meaningful to the readers. Before my final Humanities project, my audiences were always a teacher with a rubric or myself with the goal of making my work better.
Those academic and recreational standards came crashing down when I realized that the whole world could be my audience, but only if I learn and exercise to properly write to it.
Those academic and recreational standards came crashing down when I realized that the whole world could be my audience, but only if I learn and exercise to properly write to it.
I will always be grateful to my Humanities class for that revelation, because my first year of chasing my English major was more of the same rather than another completely new discovery piled on top of all the other discoveries that I was surrounded by in college. Suddenly every teacher was asking why what I was writing about was important, how it could be applied in the daily lives of my audience. This real-world, professionalism-oriented mindset began to bleed into every aspect of my life in college, and though I am only 25% through my higher education, I am already grabbing as many opportunities to further my post-grad success.
The summer after my first year of college, I am going to be running my own business through a leadership internship. I am already taking on more responsibilities for next semester with the organizations I am involved with on campus. My future is looking much more responsible than the past, and in that respect, more future-oriented. That mindset shift is so tied to my mini-revelation on the issue of essays: to reach the goals that are worth reaching, one cannot stick to standards, either internal or externally based. Every avenue must be searched and explored, scavenged for every clue closer to the essential 'why' behind any piece of art, even if it's only a persuasive essay for school.
I regret to say that I am still a novice at the combination of my personal creative synthesis, external source material, and reinforcing rhetoric, and sometimes the 'why' gets lost in the struggle to balance the three effectively. But it is that 'why' is what gives such strength to the words I write, and when the combination is at perfect equilibrium, that strength is plain to see. The 'why' is what drives me, and is driving me towards my future in literature and in the professional world.
This e-Portfolio is as much a reminder to me as it is to you readers to never stop looking for that 'why', that core, no matter if you are writing or reading.
The summer after my first year of college, I am going to be running my own business through a leadership internship. I am already taking on more responsibilities for next semester with the organizations I am involved with on campus. My future is looking much more responsible than the past, and in that respect, more future-oriented. That mindset shift is so tied to my mini-revelation on the issue of essays: to reach the goals that are worth reaching, one cannot stick to standards, either internal or externally based. Every avenue must be searched and explored, scavenged for every clue closer to the essential 'why' behind any piece of art, even if it's only a persuasive essay for school.
I regret to say that I am still a novice at the combination of my personal creative synthesis, external source material, and reinforcing rhetoric, and sometimes the 'why' gets lost in the struggle to balance the three effectively. But it is that 'why' is what gives such strength to the words I write, and when the combination is at perfect equilibrium, that strength is plain to see. The 'why' is what drives me, and is driving me towards my future in literature and in the professional world.
This e-Portfolio is as much a reminder to me as it is to you readers to never stop looking for that 'why', that core, no matter if you are writing or reading.
All images by Scott Wills, from Genndy Tartakovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars