Not just first-year composition
After the first-year writing course, Porter's communication requirement continues inside your major: designated writing-intensive and communication-intensive courses where you produce the kinds of documents and presentations your field actually uses — a lab report, a design rationale, a project proposal, a case analysis, a client presentation, a teaching portfolio.
Why it is built this way
Employers on program advisory boards consistently say technical skill is table stakes and the graduates who stand out can explain their work to a decision-maker who is not an expert. Writing in the major, graded by faculty in the major, is how Porter builds that instead of leaving it to a single freshman course.
What a writing-intensive course involves
Multiple writing assignments across the term, at least one taken through drafting and revision with feedback, writing that counts meaningfully toward the grade, and usually some instruction on the conventions of writing in that field. Your degree audit shows how many you owe and which courses satisfy them.
The Writing Center
Free consultations at any stage — from making sense of an assignment to revising a final draft — for any kind of writing, including lab reports, design documents, application essays, and graduate writing. Consultants do not proofread for you; they help you become a better editor of your own work. Book early in the week; finals-week slots vanish.
The Speaking Center
The parallel resource for presentations: structuring a talk, designing slides that support rather than duplicate you, handling questions, and rehearsing with feedback. Book it before a capstone showcase, a conference talk, or any graded presentation.
Carrying it into the job
Keep strong pieces from your writing-intensive courses — a well-received report, a proposal, an analysis — as portfolio material. The ability to point to real professional documents you wrote is a concrete advantage in interviews.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.