The Work of Cole Kariher

Coming into ENC 2135 I was sure this was going to be another boring English class where I would have to write essays analyzing other works. Growing up with AP classes and state standards I was taught to write like a robot. I would use the same formula for every essay and I would receive satisfactory grades. I always felt like a good writer. Not fantastic, just good. 

The first assignment we were given was an investigative field essay. We were supposed to analyze the field we were interested in going into and investigate the communication within our discourse community. This was where my first big decision came in for the semester. I am a double major in biomathematics and saxophone performance. I ultimately decided to choose music as my primary focus for this essay because I felt the communication within this community was more obscure and I could investigate this topic more thoroughly and maybe find insight on some unanswered questions. Sure enough as I researched this topic I found very limited amounts of information pertaining to communication in the music industry. There were several blogs about “How to Make it Big” in the music industry with ten vague tips. However nothing significant or academic was written about specifics within the industry.

I then had to choose interviewees that could help answer this question. Luckily I am already close with the jazz faculty at FSU and so I emailed several of them and Professor Anderson and Professor Detweiler responded immediately. I then was able to ask them questions about their own personal experiences in the professional music world and was able to gain insight into how to successfully communicate and land jobs in the music world. They were essential to my essay and the whole interview experience boosted my confidence.

I also chose a third interviewee that does not have the same level of experience as the two professors. Hank Landrum went to my high school and is a great help for many of the music programs around the area. He now is a graduate student for performance at University of Texas in Austin. Reaching out to him felt much more natural and I was not nearly as tense in the interview. He provided contrasting information and added to the discourse about this subject. I learned that with different levels of experience comes different advice and Hank’s advice was much more applicable to me now as an aspiring professional musician. 

Overall this project and the feedback Professor Wenzel gave me broke many of my robotic habits. I have never written an academic paper in such a personal tone before and it opened me up as a writer to many creative writing techniques I have never been able to execute before. 

I also believe one of the most eye opening experiences in this class was my first peer review. I read a girl’s paper who is an English major and I had never read anything like it before. It was so personal and entertaining, I felt like I was in a movie. After reading her essay, I completely revised my entire essay and changed almost everything about it to try to make mine more personal and fun for the reader.

The next project was the rhetorical analysis which in my opinion was the least useful paper. While the genre’s were easy to find and evaluate there was not much brain power used and I did not really feel as passionate about it. 

Our third project was very unique because we had to create our own artifacts to analyze. This process was very fulfilling and fun because all of it was original thoughts and ideas. Also the use of technology in this made me feel much more comfortable.

This course was extremely useful to me and I really think it got me to write out of my comfort zone and allowed me to put myself in an essay using my own style in a way I had never been able to do.