Self Evaluation
I was never really creative or good at writing. I found out however that I do enjoy editing and making videos. Unfortunately my least favorite part of that is doing the voice over, however writing about topics I'm interested is more fun than I anticipated. I came into the class with low expectations because English was one of my least favorite languages. Writing about anything was difficult and often took me a while to get a substantial amount. Throughout my college career most of the writing I had done was lab reports or academic papers. I believe 3 years of academic writing made being creative that much harder for this class. I started being very critical of my writing, and looking back now overly critical. I would write something or come up with an idea and scrap it because I thought I ran out of things to talk about or didn't think it was interesting. The writing exercises where we just kept writing helped a lot with this. I also realized that I hadn't physically written essays since I was in high school. I would run into dead ends a lot but found it easier as time went on to jump to a different train of thought. This helped me avoid sticking to one topic forever and being more malleable in my writing choices. Writing for blogs helped me think carefully and overcome writer's block. This wasn't easy, especially for the video project. I found that I wanted to start with one topic but with so many directions I just went with videos I had recently been watching. Unfortunately this wasn't the best choice because the topic was too complicated and I had forgotten to think about my audience. This was something I never considered. Whenever I used to write it would be for myself and my professor for academic papers. Writing creatively was a completely different experience. I found that podcasts are too hard for me personally and that I prefer a visual component. Acting is certainly not my expertise and even having to record a voice over for my video was uncomfortable. I would find again that my pronunciations, flow, or speed were off and had to keep recording. Unfortunately this is something that I'm having a harder time learning how to fix. I do however enjoy making videos and may continue this in the future.
Learning Sony Vegas was a lot of fun.
Audacity was not nearly as fun.
I enjoyed the scavenger hunt.
Learning Sony Vegas was a lot of fun.
Audacity was not nearly as fun.
I enjoyed the scavenger hunt.
Dear Sam, I'm glad you found value in the class, and I appreciate how hard you worked to get your video project ready for a lay audience. You stuck with that throughout--so I see you as someone who can develop an idea really well. It takes time, and unfortunately, the semester by semester model doesn't allow for a slower, more realistic approach to creativity. It's a process, just like anything else. I hope you will consider writing an option to turn to when you are trying to figure out a problem--just getting your thoughts on the page (remember "Shitty First Drafts?") can move you forward in the process.
ReplyDelete