Self-Assessment Essay for ENGLISH 21007

As a non-English speaker who lived in New York, English has always been a course I must study seriously. As a future civil engineer, writing for engineering is, of course, the most important to me in all English classes. At the beginning of choosing this course, I set my own learning goals for myself. Firstly, I want to learn to get useful information from other people’s academic articles quickly. Secondly, I hope that I can write technical articles in a standard format. However, my English professor’s course not only allowed me to achieve my goals but also gave me more.

The first assignment is a Technical Description. I was asked to write a process description or mechanism description. During the assignment, I was the first-time learning transfer my own knowledge to a technical description. There is always a difference between what you know, what you want to convey, and what the readers receive. An excellent technical description should allow most readers to accurately understand the author’s intentions. This requires that the words and sentences of the article must conform to the reader’s language habits or established standards. At the same time, I also need to learn to elaborate my point of view from various angles. In my technical description, I learned to use charts, metaphors, and examples to express my thoughts. Through this assignment, I did learn how to write a standard technical article and learned how to make my technical article more advanced.

The second assignment is Lab Report Analysis. I was asked to compare the basic elements of two lab report. The lab report is one of the most important article types of engineering writing. To analyze the pros and cons of two lab reports, I must master the key elements of a lab report. Through the analysis and evaluation of the two lad reports, I clearly saw a lot of mistakes we often made, and I saw what a good lab report would look like. What’s important is that this assignment taught me to “analyze.” I have studied a variety of different comparative analysis methods. Through the constant conversion of my role, I have a good grasp of the key to lad report.

The final assignment is the Research Project Final Report. It is a team project. This is beyond my expectation. I did not imagine that writing can also be teamwork. After all, everyone has their own language habits and special opinions. What a strange work would be an article that was stitched together by different authors’ paragraphs? With such questions, I started our project with my unfamiliar teammates. Together we identify topics, find information, and assign tasks. Through time and time communication, we understand each other. At the same time, my project has progressed smoothly. Everything I worried about at the beginning did not happen. I learned how to trust your teammates and how to work with your teammates. Of course, how to search for resources and how to cite these resources is also an important gain.

Review the entire semester, I found I completed many jobs. How did I accomplish so many things? That is to complete each small job step by step. No accumulation of steps, no miles.

Generally speaking, it takes 1-2 years to build a house by yourself, which is less efficient than buying a ready-made house. However, self-built houses can design the required room type according to their own ideas, and the degree of freedom is greater. Moreover, in some mature communities, there may be no new home sales, but if you want to live in a new house, then buying a land and building a house may be the best solution. However, self-built houses also need to invest a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources. If you have sufficient funds on hand, you have a strong interest in the building, you can skillfully deal with various construction workers, engineering contractors, and have time to pay attention to the project. Progress, then you are very suitable for building your own home. The point to be clear here is that self-built houses do not mean that they must be built by themselves. There are many ways to choose. You can directly find a builder to build a house in the community you are developing. You can buy the land and contract it to a mature builder to build a house. You can buy the land yourself and then be the main builder and find the sub-constructor. If you have enough time and expertise, you can build it yourself, called DIY (Do It Yourself) in the United States. It should be noted that the DIY approach has regulatory restrictions, and some areas may not allow it to be investigated in advance.

The first step after deciding to build a house is to find the right land. You can choose to buy an open space or buy a new home to rebuild. When you choose a property, you can view land and property information on zillow, redfin and other sites, choose the land that suits you, and hire a professional real estate agent to take you to the field and complete a series of land purchase and purchase procedures. At the same time, you need to pay attention to the building regulations in the area, determine whether there are restrictions on the construction of new houses, and also need to obtain a survey report, including the height of the current foundation, the height of the reference point on the street, and so on. It is also best to include the tree survey around the house, allowing the surveyor to mark the border with a small flag or iron bar. Finally, you need to conduct a soil test on the land, and the test results will usually come out within 2-4 weeks. After completing these procedures, you are looking for an architect to design your favorite home!

After selecting the architect and understanding each other’s experience, price and strengths, you also need to ask the architect if the design needs to be charged and how it will be charged. Because sometimes the HOA or City will make a modification request based on the submitted drawings, if the modification fee is too high, it will be a little lost. Before designing, you can have a preliminary design idea, such as how many rooms you want, the size of the room, the location of the stairs, the height requirements, the drainage requirements, etc., before discussing the design. Then discuss the design with the designer. Figure details and confirm the design according to local laws and regulations. After the design is completed, you need to carefully review whether the design meets the requirements, such as room layout, window brightness, structural strength, foundation design, roof design, wall thickness, lighting layout, outdoor lighting and electricity (eg swimming pool, backyard) The design of the remote control door and various functions), the design of the automation system (including the functions of the sound system, the Internet, the telephone system, the television system, the water system), the design of the air outlet and the return air outlet, the house insulation scheme, and the like. The design drawings are the basis for the evaluation of each contractor. If the change is made in the middle, it means a fare increase, and the markup may be high. Therefore, this step is very crucial. It is necessary to ask experienced people to look at it and finally finalize it after repeated consultations.

Building Dream House

The Process of United States House Building

Jun Yong Hu

City College of the City University of New York

Abstract

It takes more than two years to build a house by owner self. It includes purchasing the land, predesign, design, construction and post construction. Decide to Purchase the vacant land or old houses is the first step. Communication with architect to make a proposal is the second step. The third step of build a dream house is construction. The last step of process is post construction. Every step is important and requires owner to take it seriously.

Keywords:  design, construction

Introduction

American dream is the best way to express the philosophy of United States. A house may be the most significant part of American dream. It takes more than two years to build a house by owner self, which is less efficient than buying a ready-made house. However, self- built houses means owner can customize most of the features of the house which makes the house become a dream house. Additionally, self-built houses means owners can live in a new house which located at the ideal location. Of course, the process of building a dream house is complicated. Owner have to invest plenty of man power, material resources and financial resources on it. Purchasing the land, predesign, design, preconstruction, construction or post construction, any mistake in above steps could turn a dream house become a nightmare house.

Process of House Building

The first step in the process of building a house is purchasing the land. This step is the prerequisite for the next steps. There are two options to this step:

• Buying a vacant land.
• Buying an old house and tear down to rebuild a new house.

Vacant land is the land which has no building on it and is never have been used. Buying vacant land has a lot of advantages. The most important one is affordable. Comparing to buying an old house, buying vacant land is much easier and affordable. There also a disadvantage of buying vacant land. For example, it’s hard to find a satisfying location since it’s 2019, not 1719. Buying an old house could cost a lot more money than buying vacant land. The cost of tear down the old house also should be under budget. In addition, the owner has to hire a professional person to do a survey before the owner buy the land because different land has different usage. Owner has to

find the right land according to the zoning map. Zoning number decide what kind of house owner can build. For example, land with zoning number R4 only was allowed to build one- or two-family house, if the owner wants to build a four-family house, he should not buy this kind of land.

When the owner prepared the land, the next step is designing. This step asks the owner to have good communication with the architect. The owner should well explain his idea to the architect. The architect will plan for the following process according to the land situation, budget, and the requirements of the owner. After the architect explained the design proposal to the owner, the owner has to sign an agreement with the architect. Architect and his design team will start to design the house only if the agreement was signed.  The owner does have the right to change his idea after architect finished his design or even in the middle of construction, but it will waste a lot of time and money.

The third step of build a dream house is construction. This step requires the owner to deal with the construction team and supplier. There are multiple ways of paying for construction. First one called “lump sum” which means the owner pays a fixed fee to the construction team. This method is suited to projects which have a well-defined scope before starts. The second method is called “Cost Plus a Fee” which means the owner pays general construction cost plus an added fee. This step usually cost around 2 years for a normal residential house. It’s the major process of building a house. Sequential construction is the best and most common way to process. Sequential construction means each major phase begin only after the previous phase is complete. Phased construction can reduce risks if elements built early to come to conflict with later design decisions. An owner who doesn’t have enough time or experience to manage this step is also recommended to hire a professional construction manager to assist. A good construction manager can monitor construction, control the project site, manage trades and suppliers, and coordinate communications between construction team, design team, and owner.

The last step of the process is called post construction. When the construction team finished their works the first step owner should do is checking if all the requests are fulfilled by the design team and construction team. After verified the house the next should be a complete inspection of the electrical system, water delivery, and plumbing systems. The last step is to post construction cleaning. All the building and surrounding area should be cleaned carefully in case there are some dangerous elements was reminded form construction. For example, glass, toxic chemicals, discarded nails or screws.

Conclusion

Building a house is one of the most important things of a person. Most people don’t have experience before they start to build their first and only one dream house. Purchasing the land, predesign, design, preconstruction, construction or post-construction all the steps have required the owner to treat it seriously. Hiring a professional person to help is necessary.      

The first assignment is “Technical Description”. I was asked to write a process description or mechanism description. During the assignment, I was the first time learning transfer my own knowledge to a technical description. There is always a difference between what you know, what you want to convey, and what the readers receive. An excellent technical description should allow most readers to accurately understand the author’s intentions. This requires that the words and sentences of the article must conform to the reader’s language habits or established standards. At the same time, I also need to learn to elaborate my point of view from various angles. In my technical description, I learned to use charts, metaphors, and examples to express my thoughts. Through this assignment, I did learn how to write a standard technical article and learned how to make my technical article more advanced.