My target for expert hours was 10 hours per week. As mentioned in my mid term essay, I am a Marketing major Graphic Design minor student who is heavily involved in Student Life on campus. I work both on and off campus, and am also involved in two student organizations. This being said, it is sometimes difficult for me to find time to fulfill my expert hours. However, since mid semester I have made a more conscious effort to complete my 10 hours a week. I was 10 hours short of my goal at mid semester, whereas now I am only one hour below my goal. This is partly due to an increase in design work for the company I work for, the EAST Austin Studio tours, the creation of various flyers for student organizations on campus, and more overall effort in my class projects. I did not attend any expert experience outside of the classroom other than EAST so this is something I will change for next semester.
The first dimension refers to my social and emotional development both inside and outside out of the classroom. Throughout my time in college, I have consistently been developing in both of these areas. I am considerably more mature than I was prior to my freshman year, and I think every class I have taken has helped me achieve this. This being said, my maturity level has grown even throughout the course of this class. Although it has not been a drastic change, it is still a change nonetheless. In regards to my maturity in class, I am comfortable giving and receiving constructive feedback. Receiving negative feedback about my work inspires and motivates me to make changes. For example, the first draft of our third map, the decision map, was critiqued as a class. I didn’t receive a whole lot of positive feedback, but rather ideas for how to simplify my thoughts. The critique I received from my classmates helped me significantly in finishing my third map. Therefore, I would label myself as mature along this development spectrum.
Second, the sophistication of my work must be analyzed. In my midterm essay, I asked myself if my work was good enough to be considered “high” in this category depending on how well it fit in to the rubric. For the maps, a completely different rubric applies. Legibility, hierarchy, cohesion, and understandability are all components of rubric that constitute a “high” level of work for a map. For my three maps I chose a choropleth displaying animal shelters in Texas, an infographic for SEU demographics, and a decision map for an outdoor-loving Austinite. Based on the rubric categories listed above, I am fairly pleased with the work I produced. Compared to the symbols project in the beginning of the semester, my maps are more sophisticated and therefore place higher on the rubric. I usually am the hardest critique of my own work, so I don’t think any of the work I produced in this class is fully completed or perfect by any means. Although I am proud of the work I did produce, I do not aim to settle. This being said, I am proud of my effort and final projects, based on my experience with graphic design thus far. I would like to give myself two scores for this particular categorization. In terms of where I am at in reference to my design career, I would classify my work as adolescent. Compared to where I want to be, the work I completed in this course is building the foundation for higher work in the future. However, this does not diminish the sophistication of my work in reference to my current skill level. Considering my rudimentary (but expanding) experience in graphic design, I would label my work as high in terms of my growth in this course and overall effort.
As mentioned in my midterm essay, I think my feedback to my other peers is meaningful and helpful. Compared to the feedback I would receive about my own work for each project, the critique I gave my peers was more thought out. I enjoy critiquing others work because it helps take my mind off of my own. By looking at another project and analyzing how well it fits in to the rubric, I am able to provide the same insight to my own work. I used the ideas my classmates gave me to further develop my maps. Both the individual and class critique was incredibly helpful in giving me new insight for my own work. Because I participated in open class critique as well as individual critique and used the feedback gave me, I would label my use of feedback as meaningful.
In terms of the level of challenge to myself, I put in much more effort for the maps than for my symbols. Although I put in quantitative effort for my symbol project, the quality of my effort was poor in comparison to the map project. I was not exactly sure where to focus my efforts, whereas now I feel more confident in my design ability. Because of this, I was able to put more constructive effort into my maps. I challenged myself and tried new things. I spent a lot of time on each map and found myself spending more time on each map in the sequence. For example, I spent a considerable amount of time on the chloropleth map collecting the data. Constructing the actual map took less time than gathering and recording the number of animal shelters in Texas. The second map, the infographic, took more time to complete than the first. Thankfully, I already had all the data and I just need to construct it creatively into an infographic. The final graph, the decision map, took me the most amount of time. Because both my quantity and quality of effort for these maps was high, I would give myself the label of intense level of challenge to myself. At midterms, I defined myself as medium in this category, but I think the map project has forced me to challenge myself to design outside by comfort zone.
Regarding contribution to the classroom climate, I believe strongly I contributed positively. I showed up on time for every class period and never negatively influenced someone while they were working. Although I am typically very shy and therefore did not speak much in the classroom setting, To constitute a warm classroom environment, I expect my fellow classmates to attend class and fully participate. I always had my work ready for critique and finished final projects when they were due. I am very conscientious of missing class and m importance in attending, so I would label my contribution to class climate as warm.
Lastly, the use of practice time refers to how consistently I devoted my time to design work. Compared to the symbol project, I used my time significantly better. As a graphic design minor, this is my only design course of the semester. However, I do a lot of design work for my internship so I am able to get in extra hours there. For the map project, I prioritized what I had to do in the amount of time allotted to ensure I got my work complete. I wanted to get more involved with Command G this semester, but unfortunately time did not allow it. I had meetings or events on most nights of the workshops and events. Because I did not attend more expert hours events outside of the classroom and I did not wholly devote myself to completing my allotted expert hours per weak, I would characterize my expert hours as uneven use of practice time. Although I have progressed from mid-semester, I still need to devote more time and organization to using consistent practice time.
In almost every category, this class has improved my skills. Looking back at mid-semester, my sophistication of my work and level of challenge to myself increased significantly. I think I have grown as a designer throughout this course and am more confident in testing the boundaries of the barriers I created for myself. Up until this point, I never saw myself as being able to create anything like I have created in this class. I have learned so much, and actually feel confident about the work I have produced. In every other class leading up to this, I never felt happy with my final projects. Although they are never perfect nor fully complete, my projects I produced in this class are much more sophisticated than work I have done in previous courses. I think the six dimensions we were asked to evaluate ourselves on fully encompass the elements of our development in this class. Each is important and by focusing on them, I was able to enhance my personal growth. If I were to give myself a grade (without sounding arrogant), I would give myself an A in this course. I worked hard to fulfill each of the dimensions listed above, and have improved in each area. I hope to continue pursuing my expert hours requirement despite no longer being in this class. I now know what it takes to be a good graphic designer and how to develop rubrics for each piece of work I complete. I have attached my final maps for this course for review.
