This semester I have made it a point to do more of my homework outside of my room.  Generally I find it difficult to focus on one thing for an extended amount of time especially when I am surrounded by distractions; and since my room has too many distractions I have been going to the library and other quiet places more often.  This has  helped me make better use of my time and allowed me to increase my focus.  I have found that I am getting better at working on designing for a small block of time each day as opposed to the day before it is due.  I would say that I work on design assignments about 2-3 hours a day outside of class alongside my other general education classes and extracurriculars.  A good amount of these expert hours were spent figuring out how to use After Effects since I had not used the program previously. I would give myself an 8 out of 10 in this area.         

I would give the sophistication of my work a 7 out of 10 because I spent a lot of time planning out what I wanted my transitions to look like, but my final animation could have had clearer transitions. Since I was not familiar with After Effects to begin with I found it difficult to execute my ideas.  Once I got the hang of key framing and the basic animating effects I felt comfortable going forward with the assignment, but I do wish that we had more tutorials on ways to utilize more tools in the program.    

I give myself a 9 out of 10 for use of feedback.  Most of the feedback I got was on my transitions and ways to improve them, which was helpful because sometimes what I interpreted as a smooth transition did not translate clearly to other viewers.  It was also helpful to look at other’s animations in order to get new ideas and see what was working/wasn’t working for them visually to compare/contrast it to my animation.   

7 out of 10 in this area.  In my mind and on paper I mapped out a lot of interesting and fun ideas but when it came to executing them, or attempting to do so, in After Effects I felt held back because I didn’t know how to effectively animate those ideas. I do think that I challenged myself to learn how to use the program to a certain extent, but like any other Adobe app there is always more to learn.  I could have dedicated more time to trying to figure out different tools and watching tutorials on how to get more creative with it so that more of my ideas could come to life.  This is definitely a program that I want to get more experience with.        

I gained outside of class expert experiences through my graphic design position in Student Life which I work 5 hours a week, participating in the design team for CABRA (the St. Ed’s fashion magazine), and keeping up with design blogs.  I am also participating in a special topics VISU course taught by Alex and Bill where we are designing and creating an installation that will be in the Bob Bullock Museum in September of this year.  This class has given me experience with curating, talking about my work, writing a proposal, and designing an installation for large public space.      

9 out of 10 in this area because I feel in control of my life right now both socially and emotionally.  Some form of stress is always present but I have managed to keep it a very minimum because I am making better use of my time and also realizing that hustling and working hard everyday is going to feel stressful in the moment but prove to be rewarding in the end.     

7 out of 10, room temperature because I do try to give my peers both cool and warm feedback during individual critiquing but I could definitely speak up more during group/class critiques.   

After reflecting on the semester thus far and assessing myself I would give say that I deserve a B+.