Once upon a time, when the Spring Semester for 2023 began at CCNY, I came in to Writing for Social Sciences with high hopes of simply strengthening my writing skills. But what I was introduced to went deeper than just that… I expanded my knowledge on how to be a good interviewer, write down my thoughts more in depth, and the best part in my opinion, being a better observer within different spaces. Learning all these skills along with the technicalities and benefits that come along with utilizing each, pushed me to create write better. From freewriting to actual assignments both on and off campus, I began to see how what I was being taught showed up in my work, even down to how I approached my assignments.

There I am, 9:30AM and the class is in nearly full attendance, professor introduces us to the first production of our recurring class exercise, the 5-minute free write. Initially, I thought to myself that this shouldn’t be too hard as its just about, whatever I could possibly want to write about is what I could put down onto my paper. But believe it or not…I was a bit puzzled. It wasn’t too often up until that moment that I was ever really advised to just write, let alone with the 5-minute time limit, I had to think quickly. Once I let my mind calm down a bit and just understand that there was no right or wrong answer to this excursive, I thought about potential topics and decided just to write about the most recent event that brought me joy, my 21^st birthday. This was before me being introduced and more into the habit of writing more in depth about my surroundings and observations so as far as any descriptiveness for this very first free write…there was none. All that I got down was a more feeling based perspective.

A couple weeks later the class was introduced to our module 2 topic and assignment, a peer interview and profile. In my mind the task didn’t seem too difficult, interview a classmate, and then use your findings to write about them and who they are/want to be. So, I approached it as such. I knew that once we had the option to record that I would, to me that was a great tool for transcription and information digestion. It was my first time ever asking for permission to record a conversation amongst someone and myself, but I did, and my partner agreed. Then from there I left the phone and relied on my listening and interviewer skills to interpret and understand what he was saying regarding his upbringing and admirations. When it came time to write the peer profile, I had my recording and mental recollection of our conversation ready and knew exactly how I wanted to carry the task out. But when it came to utilizing the important parts of our conversation and my description of my partner, I feel that it was good but not as strong as it could’ve been. I wanted for my audience to read this peer profile and be able to envision my interviewee as if he was right in front of them and although they could potentially have a very good idea of him, I personally felt that it could’ve been more descriptive in terms of his appearance and more insightful as to what he said during interview.

Progressing what felt rapidly through the semester, we had returned from Spring break vacation and where back in the class. Want to guess the first thing we did? You got it, a free write! But this time was different… I knew that I hadn’t done anything too exciting over the break, so I just wrote anything that came to me. The result was a free write about experiencing NYC’s infamous, Washington Square Park. What I noticed upon completion of this 5-minute free write was that I leveled up from the mere feelings-based writing, lines like “it felt crowded” transformed in to sentences such as, “the park was full of many different social groups, from skaters and artists to EDM listeners and pigeon feeders.” Reviewing my work in contemplation about sharing aloud or not, I noticed the shift in my observation skills being reflected into my writing and that made me happy because I wrote with this level of descriptiveness, effortlessly. I hadn’t found myself overthinking the experience, just letting my pen write.

It was crunch time and final assignments were starting production. A big portion of ours was an expert interview connected to a fieldwork observation. The fieldwork observation aspect itself didn’t worry me as I was confident about knowing about my subculture topic and about being an efficient observer, but for the expert interview report, I became a little less confident. I hadn’t known if I would write an entire transcription-based report or lead with more of an interpretation-based response to the interview. To make matters a bit trickier I had completely forgotten to record my interview, so my writing depended solely on my notes and memory. So, I had at it, starting with my material I began my description of my interviewee. Once I made sure that was nicely detailed, I moved on to the recollection of the interview itself, being sure to use the relevant phrases and quotes brought up. Once done I went over it to make sure that a real message could be conveyed, and it was. I had successfully drawn up an imaginable scene of my interview that highlighted the importance of creating space for adolescents, teens, and young men of color.

Going through this course was indeed interesting and an insightful learning journey. From learning about the significance of emic and etic perspectives and being able to distinguish between which I am practicing, or memorable tips like not forgetting to try and record (with consent of course) when conducting an interview. In addition, I now practice free writing on my own personal time, a practice established in class that’ll continue for me, whether writing about the plethora of social groups at a park, or a more detailed take on my birthday experience. Writing for Social Sciences was indeed an upgrading experience for not only my writing skills, but for my research and observation.