Vish-shoeGod I hate my English teacher
Why do colleges care about how good this dumbass thinks my writing is?
because good writing skills are essential to almost every career there is. Its a cornerstone to every education route and if you write like a dumbass you won't be getting a job.
I say this as a former TA that had to slog through freshman papers that honestly had the smallest grasp of English writing and structure ever. High school education is failing its students massively. We're talking 5-page papers turned in with no paragraphs, written out without punctuation, using slang like lol in essays about the human body, copying and pasting web links as in-text citations etc. Not to mention the number of people that couldn't be bothered to write more than 3 sentences when the assignment is a multi-page literature review.
trust me, you are going to love having better writing skills when you hit the 400's and have to write 15+ page reports on things. You won't be spending your time learning formating/citations and proper grammar.
also, this is a plug for Zotero. It is literally a lifesaver for anyone who does research reports. Stores all of your sources in folders that you can name/organize (I always did this by class). Then has a word extension so it automatically inserts a work cited page and in-text citations in any of the formats you want. Takes a little bit to get used to, but will save you hours upon hours of work.