Every writing major is required to take certain course work to graduate. Depending on the writer's chosen concentration, different courses are required to develop certain specialized writing skills. I chose the nonfiction concentration. Nonfiction writing requires a writer to be hyper-aware of audience and rhetoric within a narrative framework. There is also an expectation of factuality which requires nonfiction writers to have stellar research skills.

Because I decided to pursue a concentration in nonfiction writing, my seminal course work included the following required classes: Introduction to the Essay, Introduction to Creative Writing, Argument, Public Essay, Composition Theory, Senior Seminar and Senior Project. For the courses that are not self-explanatory, I have included a description of the class, the constituent assignments and the skills that the course work honed.