Farewell!

This semester has gone by SO fast. I’ve learned so much in the past three months it’s hard to take in. At the beginning of the semester, I was really excited for the course but slightly nervous. Nervous that I wouldn’t be good at the programs that we were going to be using but excited that I was going to get to try things I never have before. When we were shown some of the examples of pieces that had been created I was pretty intimidated. But once we had our first few classes, I realized that everything was going to be explained to us step by step and I was excited to see the kind of portfolio that I would have by the end of this course.

I was surprised with how much I loved going to the lectures. The fact that we have the chance to be a part of a program where lectures include cool things that you can find online, and neat stop motion videos that we can aspire to make one day still boggles my mind. I learned so many helpful things throughout the lectures, and having a teacher that is so passionate about the subject at hand really helps.

For me, there wasn’t really anything that stood out about this course that I didn’t enjoy. I thought the tutorials were all very descriptive, and help was always available if I needed it. If I could go back in time, something I would change about my personal experience would be to learn Photoshop on my own. I felt that people who had used the program before did do a lot better on the Photoshop assignment but things like that happen with anything. If it was a songwriting assignment I would be ahead of the game, but I’m not the most tech savvy person. I would really love to continue with Digital Media classes throughout my four years because I think the things that we have the ability to do in this generation is amazing. Watching various videos in our lectures greatly changed my perspective on our digital world. I knew that we were becoming a more technological society, but I didn’t know the extent at which this was happening. The lectures and labs opened up my eyes to the possibilities that we have in our future, especially after going through a program like Radio and Television Arts. This program also made me a lot more confident in my technological skills. Like I said before, I was originally hesitant about this class because I’ve never been a computer person. But now that we have learned the basics of this software and had the chance to explore it, I’m much more confident with digital software and my creative ability. This course also helped me realize something else. If I want to be involved with the digital media field, I don’t necessarily have to be the one behind a computer. Though computers may one day become my area of expertise, as of right now I’m more of an idea person and that’s still okay. Ideas are the driving force behind anything, especially in digital media. So even if I’m not the best with computers, I could team up with someone who loves working with computers but doesn’t have many ideas and we could work together to create something amazing.

The most important thing that I am taking away from this class is all the ideas that I have been exposed to. I’d like to think that I’m a very creative person and the fact that I have now been exposed to videos, concepts and technology that I have never seen before  is really important to help me express my ideas. For example, I may have had an idea to make a creative website that could reach a large number of people and only ever thought of fun games and activities that I could put on the website. After learning what I have in the lectures, I could now apply the interactivity concepts to my website. Instead of just having a basic website with pictures and videos, I now know that I could create some sort of game that fans could be involved with and have them find clues across the city, leading them to a final prize- a thought that may have never entered my mind before this course. This is just one of the many examples of ways that I could apply the knowledge I’ve obtained in this course to ideas that I will create in my future.

I’ve said this is previous blogs, but I am very grateful to be in this program. This course in particular forced me to think outside the box. Every assignment pushed me in a way that I have never experienced before. Knowing that our teacher was going to see 20 + album covers made me want to design something like no one else had. It also gave me the chance to explore various programs and apply it to my everyday life. Though I may have not had the best looking album cover, the feedback I received was very helpful so when I decide to make another one for my own CD, I already have some ideas and ways to improve my original design.

I hope my blogs have been entertaining and informative these past 12 weeks! Thanks for taking your time to read them and I’ll be sure to keep posting.

p.s. here's a sneak preview of my logo for my website :)