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+# Fall 2024 Course Review: TC 496
+
+2024-12-20
+
+Course Title: Advanced Technical Communications
+
+Rating: 3.5/5
+
+## Instructor (Amy Pavlov)
+
+She made a statement on the first lecture: she cares. Whether it's the
+preferred name policy, or the acknowledgment to the Anishinaabe people.
+These gestures formed my respect for her on the first day.
+
+Although grades can come out later than one would expect, she always
+provides thoughtful feedback.
+
+She and her children are also tøp fans. They were at Clancy Tour as well,
+though [I did not know that until the lecture next
+day](../music/clancy-tour.md#monday).
+
+## Course topics
+
+This course typically accompanies a student's MDE (major design
+experience), i.e. capstone. We talked about the MAPS of technical
+communication:
+
+- Mode: document format and conventions
+- Audience: who's reading it, who _could_ read it, what do they need or
+  expect to know
+- Purpose: after they read it, what do you hope they do
+- Situation: context of a certain piece
+
+We were asked to write stuff, and then sometimes write a reflection
+discussing MAPS. We needed to justify our choices: Why did you use
+a bullet point on this slide? Why did you enlarge the figure on the
+poster? Why didn't you wear fancy shoes on the presentation? etc etc.
+(Lack of fancy shoes is not a deduction.)
+
+## Assignments
+
+The course material is reflected in the assignments. I will talk about the
+substantial ones I did.
+
+Core assignments: everyone has to do them.
+
+- Email: how to write professionally
+- Project team charter: a contract which was supposed to be enforced in
+  our project team but has never been cited once after it was written
+- Two presentations: one on any topic, the other on our capstone projects,
+  along with reflection for each
+- Rhetorical analysis: comment on a group's poster and report in
+  a previous year with MAPS principles
+
+Non-core assignments: we can pick 3-4 from a list. I picked:
+
+- Resume and reflection
+- Poster and reflection
+- Report and reflection
+
+(The reflections are immensely helpful because I can just copy them here)
+
+## Presentation 1
+
+Sample slide:
+
+![Slide titled "Real-Time Linux has non-embedded use cases". A MIDI
+keyboard with an arrow labeled "MIDI events" leading to a piano roll.
+A gamepad with an arrow labeled "Gamepad events" leading to a screenshot
+from the Untitled Goose Game.](img/f24_wrapup/rtlinux.png)
+
+From my reflection:
+
+> My presentation is titled “Real-Time Linux is now just Regular Linux,”
+> […]. I could have gone with any other topic, but once I came up with the
+> title, there was nothing else.
+
+> The idea came to me when I saw on the news that Linus Torvalds […] has
+> merged the last patch from real-time Linux. […] However, it would be
+> boring for the embedded system folks if I just repeated Prof. Brehob’s
+> words. Therefore, I decided to focus instead on non-embedded
+> implications.
+
+> Although the presentation was supposed to be purely informative, I was
+> in fact making an argument that real-time Linux being official is good
+> news, and implicitly suggesting that more people should consider using
+> Linux.
+
+Section "Delivery":
+
+> Of all presentations I have made, this is my best one. First of all,
+> I showed a level of confidence that I wish I had in the past few years.
+> I came up to the stage with the expectation that everyone was
+> anticipating my talk, not judging it. I also managed to made it both
+> informative and entertaining. Furthermore, the presentation was timed
+> perfectly, clocking almost exactly 4 minutes, covering exactly what
+> I had prepared for.
+
+> One thing I dislike about my delivery is that I was pacing around too
+> much. I was alternating between pointing to the projector screen and
+> reading from the speaker notes. If I could do it again, I would stay
+> close to the laptop, and point to the screen with the laser pointer.
+
+> My attire was the best I could do. The pants were on sale at JCPenney,
+> and the shirt and belt were bought on eBay. I have no dress shoes.
+
+Section "Comment":
+
+> Watching this video is a form of self-affirmation. Over the year that
+> I spent in Michigan, my self-esteem has grown tenfold, and now I’m doing
+> things I could never have done in Shanghai. Today I went to a Halloween
+> event dressed in a tablecloth with a schematic of the 370 pipeline
+> processor drawn on it and didn’t feel nervous at all.
+
+> I sent this video to my mother. Over the month she has been showing it
+> to her coworkers, who don’t understand a word I’m saying but all agree
+> that I look grown up and professional. I’m very thankful that I have the
+> opportunity to reform my opinion of myself.
+
+## Verdict
+
+I wrote in my exit survey:
+
+> What I learned in TC496 was not a doctrine; even the Assertion-Evidence
+> was a suggestion (the fact that it has [a
+> website](https://www.assertion-evidence.org/) makes it look like a cult,
+> honestly). It was more subliminal. It reduces the risk that I’m writing
+> something that only makes sense to me.
+
+> When artists create digital artwork involving anatomy, they (including me)
+> routinely mirror the canvas to check if something is horribly off. TC496
+> is that mirror button. It is an inner voice to remind me to think of the
+> audience. I’ve always been doing that since ENGR 100, but this course
+> requires me to explicitly answer the questions: who am I writing for, and
+> what do they need to know? Answering them helps me to stop elaborating on
+> common knowledge and to explain jargon.
+
+> Now, a rant. All the tech comm courses I’ve taken over these years (ENGR
+> 100, TC 300, TC 496) seem to have taken a toll on my creative writing.
+> I cannot write a piece of fiction or poetry without the urge to make it
+> basically an event log. Sometimes I need something to make sense only to
+> myself, e.g. the kitchen sink. I need to separate serious writing from
+> casual writing. Sometimes colorless green ideas _can_ sleep furiously.