350 Reflection

Chris Jackson Reflection

Working on the community projects was an awesome experience for me. It was beneficial for not only the skills and techniques I learned, but also the life lessons in confidence. Before I jump into what I learned from it though, I want to rant on why projects like these are fantastic. This semester I have taken my two favorite CLCE classes. One was this class, and the other one was CLCE 490 (the internship course). The two main reasons I enjoyed these classes is they both involved outside “real world” work. I am a big supporter of learning as much as you can outside of the classroom. What is the point of learning about subjects if we are not learning in situations where the skills will be applicable when we graduate and leave school? You can only learn so much from textbooks. Learning to work on actual projects that affect the bottom line of a business/non-profit is a whole different kind of experience than working on something that only affects your G.P.A.

Now, about the project itself. I will be honest I was a little disappointed at first when I wasn’t placed on an actual team. The more we got into it however, the better I appreciated my role. Time-wise it was really nice. I was able to meet with my marketing partner and the logistic teams in class, and then do all my work on my own time at my place. I enjoyed not having to arrange meetings, or trying to somehow fit my schedule with my teams schedule then with an organizations schedule. I also liked the idea of working by myself on parts of the project. I was tasked with doing the website for all the groups. This was something I did completely by myself (due to how we split up the tasks). For the other groups, they had to create a website between 4-5 members but I am able to state that I did it entirely by myself. Granted, it was smaller and most likely not as good as a majority of the others, but it still (in my opinion) pretty cool to say I created my own website.

This project had some pretty awesome takeaways. First, obviously is the skillset that I know can create websites (small websites, and only on specific programs but still). This is a skill that I can utilize in interviews, and something that employers would definitely look for in candidates. Even if employers are not looking for website-creators, I think it shows a lot about the candidate. It shows that they are tech-savvy, can work on large projects, that they are creative, and that they are willing to work with different softwares. On top of the physical skills, I had an even bigger takeaway from this project: it was an immense confidence booster. It also was another scenario that proves one of my favorite sayings, “fake it until you make it”. I had no idea how to make a website, and was pretty nervous when I was tasked with creating one. However when splitting up the work I gladly asked to be tasked with it. I wanted the challenge, and I knew I would be able to create one. Plus, as I mentioned above, I knew that it would be a great skill to have! All in all, this project and overall class was a fantastic experience and in my opinion is a testimony of the direction the CLCE program should be taking.