When discussing the most interesting writing project he has worked on so far, Nugent describes a paper he wrote during his first semester in the program. “I crafted a seminar paper for RWS 609, with Professor Richard Boyd titled ‘Consulting Student Leaders: Cogenerative Dialogue in Practice and Theory.’ In the piece, I use concepts from critical pedagogy to reflect on my experiences conferencing with high school students in ‘leader lunch’ meetings I created during and after the COVID era of online instruction.” He mentions that he would like to continue his research on this project based on his recent experiences as a TA for RWS 100 and 200 classes. Along with that, Nugent mentions the most inspirational course that he has interacted with so far as a graduate student. He states, “RWS 640, Research Methods with Professor Kathryn Valentine has been my favorite and most significant course in the M.A. program so far. I liked how we took the course in our second semester of the program to figure out what kind of research we wanted to explore. Professor Valentine’s course sequence also helped me think about how to apply concepts in qualitative research and rhetorical criticism, and my abilities as a writer grew by taking on new and challenging genres of composition.” Nugent explains how engaging the coursework is overall, and discusses the incredible community that is established in the department.

Nugent describes an especially notable moment during his time so far in the RWS department. “This past summer of 2023, I attended the Computers and Writing Conference, at UC Davis. At the event, I was able to present the preliminary ideas from my research proposal in RWS 640 at a roundtable with professors and fellow graduate students, and I got some meaningful feedback. I was also able to join Professor Edwards and Professor Jenny Sheppard, who were also in attendance, in sessions ranging from AI in writing instruction, digital tools in reading and scholarly writing production, and the ‘Wayfinding Project,’ a large-scale qualitative study on what college alumni remember most fondly about their writing experiences as undergraduates.” He mentions how fortunate he was to have been able to attend this conference and how much he learned from this experience. Along with that, Nugent works as the Graduate Teaching Assistant in the lower-division writing program. With this position, Nugent mentions that he has “had the honor of designing common curriculum that integrates the department’s new student learning outcome which includes a focus on “rhetorics of global and structurally marginalized communities.” 

As for his work as a graduate student and beyond, Nugent is currently working on his thesis. He states, “Drawing on the research methods I’ve practiced in RWS 512 and RWS 640, I am proposing a basic qualitative study for my thesis prospectus. The purpose of the research is to discover how teachers of first-year college writing courses design meaningful writing prompts. I’m most interested in using replicable interview methods to gather data on how teachers think about writing assignments, and hopefully I can arrive at a few pedagogical recommendations.” Nugent is incredibly passionate about his work within the department and describes each one of his experiences and opportunities with such gratitude. Lastly, Nugent mentions his aspirations for after he obtains his M.A. “I plan on pursuing full-time work as a lecturer in rhetoric and composition for at least two years to gain more experience teaching in higher education. I am also considering applying for Ph.D. programs later in my life, but at the moment, I want to keep working on writing projects for potential publication and doing as much as I can with students in the classroom.” 

When asked about her involvement in the program, she mentions that a main reason for joining the department was because of a push from her RWS 200 professor who was impressed with her work. After doing so, she soon discovered that the reason rhetoric stood out to her was because “it felt much more personal. The projects I have created for my classes have been an amazing outlet for me. I think rhetoric gives students a way to voice opinions and talk about subjects they might not otherwise get the opportunity to discuss in other settings.”

Emily once again thanks the professors in the program as they are a critical part of why she stayed so involved in RWS. “They have been very supportive and are always eager to help,” she says. “The classrooms have always felt like safe spaces where students are allowed to voice opinions and concerns.” Due to the seminar style of a lot of RWS classes, creating a comfortable environment is something that the department has nearly perfected. 

An example of this is an upper division course, RWS 510: Rhetoric and Culture. Emily mentions that it “opened my eyes to so many different forms of rhetoric and even helped me find my own voice and the ways culture influenced my own forms of communication. This class made it very apparent that there are so many diverse ways of communicating with others, and we should embrace that everywhere, including the classroom.” She wishes that more people understood that RWS is “so much more than just a GenEd and has the potential (whether it is your major or minor) to build your communication skills.”

Not only has Emily found confidence in herself in class, but while doing so, she learned the value of effective communication in both social and professional settings. With this, she hopes that as she departs from SDSU, students give the unique program a chance and that they realize it is “so much more than just writing essays and learning about old Greek philosophers. This program is a way for students to discover their own voice and learn the ways to effectively communicate their opinions and beliefs.” 

When discussing her experience writing her thesis, Gubala mentions that she is revisiting this topic and expanding on her original work. “I wrote a thesis on using ancient rhetoric to teach professional writing. Looking back, I can see that I lacked enough experience in academia to properly articulate this argument. However, I have recently returned to the ideas behind this project. Specifically, I have recently started a project with a colleague that suggests using the progymnasmata and classical interpretation of imitation to teach writing instructors.” Gubala is incredibly passionate about her work, and looks forward to continuing her conversation on this topic that began within the department. 

Along with revisiting the ideas from her thesis, Gubala continues to further her research on many topics of conversation within the field. Specifically, she is currently working on a book about teaching the technical professional communication (TPC) service course with some colleagues. In regard to this course, Gubala states, “The service course refers to business writing, health science writing, and writing for engineers. Our goal is to improve pedagogical practices for teaching TPC service courses using student data, instructor feedback, and interviews with teaching faculty and program administrators. The quantitative and qualitative data collected will be analyzed to offer suggestions on improving pedagogical practices such as outcome integration, assignment design, and feedback.” 

At the University of California Davis, Gubala brilliantly implements her rhetorical pedagogical background into her work. When discussing her work, she states, “I primarily teach editing, business writing, technical writing, and advanced composition. As part of this position, I also have an administrative role where I serve as the assistant director of online writing instruction.” Gubala looks back at her time in the master’s program with fondness, and reflects positively on both the courses she took and the faculty in the department — encouraging students today to get involved and make the most of their time here. 

While enrolled at SDSU, Fogle was met with a number of opportunities to grow her career. One of which was when she served as the vice president of the Graduate Student Association. While she was helping others and offering resources to students alike, she found that she was making connections and finally excelling at something she was passionate about: teaching and tutoring. However, this path was not always on Fogle’s mind. Through a technical writing course she took, she scored an internship with Hewlett-Packard. While “HP was great in a lot of ways,” says Fogle, “I just didn’t enjoy technical writing. I stuck with it for three or four months, and despite that they offered to bump my pay, I just knew I needed a job that was a bit more creative. I’m proud of myself that I said no, simply having a good job is not enough for me.” Fogle mentions that this lesson of being able to “try new things, but don’t be afraid to call it quits if you don’t like what you’re doing,” was something that she learned in the RWS department, and it has stuck with her for years. 

Despite her love for writing in the professional world, Fogle also enjoys bringing rhetoric into her personal life. With a five-year-old at home, Fogle discusses how much the two enjoy reading together. “We also spend a great deal of time dissecting the characters, looking at symbolism… I ask a lot of questions. I guess the takeaway is, rhetoric will help you parent.” Fogle jokes at this remarking, “Perhaps I should make t-shirts!”

At the end of the day, Fogle couldn’t be more grateful for her time at SDSU as it has sharpened her career in ways she didn’t think possible. When asked about her personal philosophy on the importance of rhetoric, Fogle ends with the following statement:

“For me rhetoric offers a set of tools to peel away layers, peek behind the veil at something — a slogan, an essay, architecture — and make sense of it in a new, and richer, way. As a culture, with ‘truth’ being delivered faster than ever and often by way of an algorithm, I believe it’s crucial for us to take an active interest in to looking deeper into who is communicating what messages and why.”

During this experience though, she was faced with several challenges. She was instructing “non-traditional students, many of whom were recently incarcerated or formerly (or currently) houseless, and many of them were neurodiverse.” Kerford expresses her gratitude for this experience, but in the moment she remembers feeling overwhelmed as it was “a pretty difficult job for a new teacher.” However, this experience is what made her want to go back to get her master’s as she “fell in love with teaching.” 

Now, since Kerford found her passion, she is able to focus her research on something important to her: identity. Kerford explains that being biracial is something that has been both interesting and confusing for her. Because of this, she focuses on how to express vulnerability when it comes to writing as well as teaching. Another reason for continuing her studying and teaching of rhetoric was due to her realization that “there are so many pieces of everyday life that become easier and more accessible if you have at least a basic understanding of rhetoric/rhetorical principles.” 

While Kerford may love the subject that she teaches, she admits that the reason she has stuck around so long is because of the students. She talks about how getting to know their personalities while helping them improve their writing skills is not only rewarding, but also “makes [her] classes so much richer,” and that she is “constantly learning from them, which is so fun.” Seeing the students’ personalities shine was something reflected in her recent RWS 305W class. Kerford explains that because of the unique flexibility of the course, she got to see students’ creativity flourish. From assignments like blog posts via Adobe Express, students had the option to practice pragmatic rhetorical skills in addition to extensive creative freedom in a less formal environment. Overall, Kerford is always striving to better the education of her students, and hopes that she can allow them to feel comfortable in an academic environment that can be quite intimidating. 

Castillo reflects on his time in the philosophy department, mentioning his biggest influence and mentor, Steve Barbone, who Castillo describes to have “taught [him] more than [he] could ever repay him.” Writing his thesis was an incredibly positive experience for Castillo as it was something he was so interested in. “My thesis was probably the only passion project I had,” Castillo says. “I wrote over 120 pages in the first draft, and it took forever to get it under 100 pages for the final draft (not including the bibliography). I wrote about David Hume and motivated cognition.” 

When discussing rhetoric and writing studies, Castillo describes his stance on the importance of rhetoric in an incredibly compelling way. “I think understanding how to persuade and using a specific skill set to do so is a necessary condition of living well in society,” he says. “If you cannot take a stance and use that stance to change people’s minds or at least their initial degree of vindication on some matter, then I would imagine that the world would seem like a difficult thing to engage with at times. Too often do people want to sell you on something, convince you about some matter, but so long as you can take that stand and agree/disagree and more importantly offer reasons for doing so, then you have something for yourself in terms of dignity and self-respect.” Castillo continues on by including a modern-day example of why rhetoric is important. “If you happen to watch ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’ you’ll know that Mark Cuban made the phrase ‘[…] and for those reasons, I’m out’ as actually an enthymematic moment. While we might think about the rhetoric of ‘Shark Tank,’ Cuban can teach us something about taking a stance and its use. What this shows us is that rhetoric is a multifaceted tool.” 

Castillo offers some valuable advice to current and prospective students. He states, “I wish I would have known to read more and learn who to ask to read the right things during my studies. Obviously, you can’t read everything. However, I wish I would have known what to prioritize.”