During the summer course I learned about how to do basic graphic design, use my creativity and logic to make something look good, and how to use group collaboration to make a website that looks fantastic. When I started my only knowledge of the graphic design world came from a one-semester class from a teacher who hated technology. This class however, taught me all about how to do things that I always thought were so difficult, yet now I know they are quite easy if you have a good teacher and time. The Italian proverb  “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a life-time” was a way I would say this class went for me. Before I was used to being “fed” everyday, but now that I know how to “fish” I can go out and use my skills that I learned to make amazing things for fun or future classes and jobs.

 

Using my logic or my creativity alone is usually when you will see me succeed the most, but this class isn’t like math or theater where I just have to use one or the other. I struggled with it because there were assignments that I couldn’t do because of my own mental block. Some examples of these assignments are making my ASF and the feature story design . I wouldn’t say I didn’t like these projects, but they were definitely very challenging for me because of the fact that instead of being something I would normally breeze through, they caused me to spend a lot of time forcing myself to be creatively logical or logically creative at all times when I worked on them.  I even tried to separate the design elements and the writing/ information parts out, but I couldn’t keep rewriting the same thing because I wanted it to still sound like a story, but be informative.  However, there were some assignments I liked because they were less severely-challenging for me. The vector assignment and the E-Zine photo challenge because I just had to use my imagination and creativity then I could go back and add information to them.

 

Working with a group on assignments that I already struggled with was really difficult because I didn’t want to seem dumb or incapable even though I was. I also struggle to socialize because I have social anxiety, and I have had bad expirences with groups where either I do all the work or where I have someone in my group who wouldn't let me do anything unless they got to watch me. These past experiences made me weary to have another group. When we started it was also difficult because there were already communication problems and I had switched groups which was weird for me because I already knew everyone in my previous group. I think that alone made me nervous because I am always extremely awkward when it comes to meeting new people and always overthink everything. Although I was super nervous, all the group members were really nice which made me more comfortable. We did have our struggles when it came to communicating and working together, but we gave everyone a chance to say their ideas or say their opinions on them. I am very happy that this group had many hard workers that put in a lot of effort and sometimes put more effort in than I did which motivated me to do better and helped me have a positive outlook on any of our projects together. Even though we didn’t know each other I think that made us better at collaborating because we didn’t have any opinions of one another before we started our project that would make it difficult to make decisions or work.

 

My group and I worked hard we still had some struggles since we weren't seeing each other because of COVID-19. COVID-19 is and has affected almost everyone. I know I am definitely not even close to having the worst experiences when it comes to the virus, but it did affect my learning  in just a few ways. To start off I would have never done this course during the summer if the virus wasn’t here. I usually travel during this time, so going to class wouldn’t have happened at all. I am really thankful I did end up doing the class because I made some new friends and met new people even if it wasn’t in person. Another way is that working in groups is much easier if you can see what everyone is talking about and explaining rather than having to screen share and point with a mouse then hoping they understand what you mean. Something helpful is that now I can work on projects after school for as long as I want. Before I would have to be at school to do them with a time limit because librarians and teachers wanted to leave work and I needed to get home.

 

All in all I would say this course is amazing because it makes

you think outside of the box, has you work with new people,

and is really informative. Although I did struggle with some

assignments more than others, I think it was  a healthy

struggle for me. I have learned much more for this class

about the way I work and how to change the way I view

things better than I ever knew  before. Now, because of this

class, the amazing teacher and hard working group mates, I 

am a knowledgeable human being when it comes to graphic

design, I am better at communicating and trusting my group

members, and I know how to use my creativity and logic in

sync without it being a major struggle.