I feel so lost in all this work to be done to complete my capstone experience. I have been making copies and keeping everything I've done, but it doesn't seem like enough.
The poster project is coming up fast and I feel totally unprepared. I keep thinking of certain aspects to focus on, but I'm not sure what will be interesting to others viewing my project. Instead of working on one main project for a duration of time, I have been doing multiple edits and design work with multiple projects. So, how do I choose what best exemplifies my intern experience? Can't I just make a video of what I do for the next week and edit and show that, and others will still only get a taste of what I've been doing and the learning experience that I've had.
Some of my favorite and most notable projects have been Trenchmouth proofread, chosen blurbs for advertisement, map proofing. Matewan note checking, and Macrofungi text condensing. Although I'm sure there is plenty there to show for my internship, but it just feels like it won't be enough. Nothing really stands out as a huge change I made or accomplishment. Maybe I'm just overreacting because it is crunch time, and I feel so unprepared. Plus, it seems that every class has been hitting me hard since I've gotten back from break; which doesn't make this stuff any easier.
I am also totally clueless with how to approach my web portfolio. I have done web desing work in my Multimedia class, but I feel like I had to self-teach myself in the last 3 weeks just to finish and polish my project. I am just not sure what to include in the porfolio and the means to get everything on the web. All of the pages that I have been keeping and collecting, am I supposed to put all of them in my portfolio? It just seems like a lot of work and there isn't a lot of time to do it in. If only I was a wiz on the computer, then this would be easier!
Oh well, I actually work really well under pressure, and I always manage to produce an amazing finished product. I suppose I'll figure all this out, as soon as I'm done venting about it, so bring it all on!
4 comments:
I certainly appreciate you're sense of the pressure as everything becomes due at the end of the semester.
You express your concern that you're working on so many different projects but not going deeply into any one project. Don't worry here -- the "variety" aspect of your internship is one that you can highlight--even make the focal point--of your poster and/or your portfolio. It could be a little trickier for your poster, as you won't want it to be so jammed with stuff that readers can't make sense of what's there, but you certainly could focus on three or four different types of projects on which you've been focusing. Readers of the poster and of the portfolio will appreciate seeing the wide variety of activities on which you've worked and learning about the range of skills you developed in order to complete these projects.
We'll devote all of Meeting #4 to learning how to create a web portfolio in a user-friendly method. Do make sure that you've read through the assigned chapters in Miles Kimball's _The Web Portfolio Guide_ to help you prepare.
And finally, you can use your blog entries to begin drafting material for your poster and portfolio, which would allow me to give you feedback over the next few weeks.
I can definitely relate to the pressure that you are feeling and I feel the exact same way about the web portfolio. The poster I am feeling more confident about because I made a list of all the projects I've done. Then I starred them and got those ones and put them all out in front of me so I could see them visually. I am not completely positive yet which ones I will definitely use, but I have a much better idea. For me, just thinking about everything was making me crazy so I wrote it out and got organized the things I really liked and some things that had things in common and that seemed to help so maybe try that to get focused? And you can always have a booklet of other documents you've done that you're proud of on the table for people to read so you won't feel as if you've had to compromise what's on your poster and what's not. But the poster doesn't need to and probably shouldn't have too much stuff on it as it will look too busy so don't worry about not having enough.
My advice would be take it one day at a time, breathe and hopefully the meeting this week will get you and all of us feeling more prepared for the web portfolio.
Good luck! You'll be just fine!
I know we've talked about it, but wow do I feel your pain! I also work well under pressure, but I hate the stress and anxiety it brings on. As Scott & Meagan have mentioned, the good thing about the poster is that you don't want too much stuff on it, so we don't have to kill ourselves trying to get all of the things we want to display onto one poster.
If you haven't gotten your posterboard yet, Target had the cardboard versions on sale for something like 3.99.
Good luck!
I know this comment is a little delayed for the poster aspect, but I wanted to give you some advice on the web portfolio. Prof. Wible doesn't expect us to be HTML and CSS wizards... what he wants to see from the web portfolio is that we can showcase the work we have done in our internships this semester to prove our PWE abilities.
If you go into the White Hall computer lab, every computer there has DreamWeaver. I don't know if you made it to the meeting last week, but it is really easy to use and simple. Even though the webpages won't be as fancy as the ones we made in Sandy Baldwin's class, they will be equally as effective.
Good luck and I'll see you tonight!
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