Finishing Projects

"Driscoll's What Model"

1)What: outlining the experience and what you are reflecting on.

2) So what: reflecting on the experience, and what you have learned as a result.

3) Now what: how you will use what you have learned in the future, and future practices.

1)What?

I realized that throughout my blog posts, I wasn't exactly "specific" with my experiences and what I was reflecting on. I had so many thoughts and experiences that I wanted to talk about all of them and mull them together. However, today I will focus on one thing:

I finished all of my projects.

It feels immensely satisfying knowing I have finished my projects. I have finished them the day before submitting, so it feels even more satisfying knowing that I can continue to revise and edit them until I need to submit them.

Now, by finished I do not mean never to edit, never to see again. I simply mean that I have finished working on it, and have met a deadline. I definitely see room for continuous improvement, but it feels those improvements on my projects would be never ending! There's always something in the small details I can find and work on. This I realized with my previous projects as well.

Overall, I am proud of how much I have improved while creating these projects. In the beginning of school, and our first project in Term 1, I had no idea where to begin, how to create it, how to visualize it, and had no idea how to turn it in under 25 MB (Compress).

But, now after having more experience, and after working on multiple projects, I have seen just how much I have learned, and what I can continue to focus on in order to improve and work on more projects. Some skills I know I want to improve on are my visualization skills, as well as being more professional with the work I produce. I think overall I have learned several new design skills, but there is so much more to learn. I also want to work on my creativity and understanding of fashion and art. Finally, I hope to develop more analytical skills so that I can correctly create better graphs and visual designs that will interpret data in meaningful ways.

Other skills, such as emotional intelligence skills, I am hoping and expectant to learn as I try more, do more, learn more, reflect, and communicate with my peers!

2) So what?

I think this just goes to show the importance of working on skills, despite not knowing where to start or what to do. Feeling lost in the beginning was an uncomfortable and scary thing to experience. However, it was necessary to understand how to move forward and work on what I didn't know. Ultimately, not knowing what to do was the first step into diving into skills that I could learn more and know how to do.

2) Now what?

I see projects in a much more positive light than I had before. Honestly, the amount of work and pressure is never ending, but it also feels like a good pressure that leads into learning and understanding of oneself. I definitely appreciate the break we have after this project, but I'm grateful for each moment that taught me along the way. From feeling stress about moving to London, to catching up on lectures, to meeting my lecturers, to taking lectures in person, to learning about information, to compiling it, to getting sick, to finally being able to finish the work. I felt that each part was a necessary part that allowed me to reflect deeply to understand what I could and couldn't control, and what I could and couldn't work on in my life and career.

Overall, I hope to continue to be grateful, and continue to work hard. There is just so much information I do not know or have still have yet to learn, but I am feeling positive about learning and positive to keep understanding and reflecting moving forward.

Thankful for these blog posts, and thankful for my school who suggested we do it as part of this project! (Also thank you to Driscoll for creating such an organized model to work with.) Cheers!