Well this would seem to be a page that should be filled with profound fresh insights and new knowledge gleaned from the completion of my project. Ok I'm going a bit over board but it certainly is true that BEST has been great and I've definitely got a few things to share about what my project has done for me.
By working in a real world environment I've been able to see how difficult it is to manage time. My project was very open ended-helping technology at BHS- yikes that covers quite a bit of ground. And unfortunately my project suffered because it was not narrow enough in focus. The project lacked focus partially because I hadn't planned well enough to apply it and also because I had a tendency to jump aboard several ideas that came my way adopting them as something that I was working on. I found myself doing too many things at once, and with computers things tend to take a lot longer that one might have hoped for and that only made matters worse. Consequently I did several things but most of them only half way or some not really at all. BEST has helped me to learn a valuable lesson in how to manage time and plans so that I don't wind up doing so much that I'm in fact doing nothing but spending energy constantly shifting from one project to another.
Marantz has more than once accused e of not liking to do "grunt" work like installing software, finding software conflicts on computers, etc. I always found an excuse or 2 to work around her accusations. But I've really come to realize that I don't like doing these "grunt" tasks. Those little "annoying" that need to get done in order to keep a computer working like installing software making patch cables, troubleshooting small problems. But I still prefer to do grand projects such as installing additional network hardware or setting up a new machine. Perhaps it's the more instantaneous gratification vs. the down the road gratification but, for whatever reason I'm much happier to do bigger things. Any how working with computer stuff during has given me a real insight into that facet or my work ethic and it's something I'll be remembering in the future.
Anybody who knows me well will surely be laughing at this because they know that organization is the last skill that possess not to mention how seldom I use it. On my laundry list of why DTP ain't the best place to be I should have included it's disorganized nature, everything is thrown carelessly around and just left to be found whenever (except for important things which actually get put into drawers-not in any particle order though). Working in DTP has showed me just how nice and efficient it is to work somewhere that is organized.
This last summer I took a class in how to use Adobe Photoshop at the ASUC Art Studio up at Cal and our instructor posed to us a very interesting and rhetorical question-Are computers time saving devices? Well after having worked very closely with computers for a full semester I still don't have a set answer. I'll typically have a different answers depending on how the day has gone and how I'm feeling at the time. Like right now as I'm writng this I'm thinking yah-it's great I write this and edit it and then transfer it over the internet to a machine a school and then several people in another building will be able to view it simultaneously what could be better? But then I start thinking what if my internet connection goes down what if the network connection between the G and the B dies. If there were to be a snafu in anyplace along the line the time and stress of putting this together would be increased quite substantially. Quite unfortunately snafus happen more than one would like and thusly make things take a lotlonge than they should. I've come to realize that I really like working with working computers- and getting not working computers to work again is also fun but dealing with uncooperative not working computers is terrible and I hate it. So now I've got a lovely little question-Is working through the frustrating times with computers in order to make them work correctly more stress and aggravation then it will ever be worth?
My project was very rewarding, when I managed to finish things, I just wish that I'd have structured it so that I could have finished more things.