While registering for a college-level English course, the author questioned how difficult it would be, having excelled in English previously. However, the author struggled with several assignments and learned the importance of transitions between points, reducing wordiness, and fully explaining information and quotations. Over the course of the class, feedback helped the author improve transitions between paragraphs in reflective essays. The author had previously been taught to summarize each paragraph at the end, but learned academic writing requires different techniques.