Assignment #7 – The Mid-Semester Reflection 

This college schedule is still all new to me. I can’t believe it’s already the middle of the semester. I can’t believe spring break is already here. And I can’t believe the semester ends in like two months. Having CT101 only once a week also made the class go by way more quicker. But I’ve enjoyed CT101 a lot. It’s a fun class and Professor Ryan is an amazing professor. Thanks to this class I have more confidence in sharing things I love to create. I don’t know why but I always thought I’d be embarrassed if people, other than my friends, would know what I do on my own time. But now I have no care in the world and I love sharing what I create. 

I admit I already knew a few things before entering this class. I already knew about GIFs and editing pictures and videos. But one thing this class did introduce me to is new websites and how to use these websites. Photopea, Removebg, and mmm.page. I can’t afford Photoshop so of course Photopea is the next best thing. I had fun with Photopea when I did the DS106 assignment. And removebg is now my go-to website when I need the background removed from my picture. I can use mmm.page to make fun messy collages because why not. The possibilities are endless with all these new websites. AND THEY ARE ALL FREE.

I believe the real thing I learned from this class is how to be a proper “blogger”. I mean, I’m not officially a blogger but I’ve learned how to make my post more captivating and interesting. Like how we’re told to always add a picture or a GIF at the start of our post. You can think of it as a hook in the introduction of an essay. It’s supposed to grab the reader’s attention from the start. The GIFs and memes added throughout the blog help the reader stay interested. I’m not good at writing hooks in my essays to keep the readers interested but I am good at adding fun GIFs in my blog.

Many things I learned in this in this class are things that I knew or had knowledge of already. The reason why I took this class was to see if I’d enjoy communications as a major. This class gave me a great first impression of communications but I’m still not sure about it yet.

I believe I deserve AT LEAST a B…maybe even a B-. I’d admit that I’m usually behind on some assignments. While I am glad that Professor Ryan is very lenient on when blogs are supposed to be posted. But in my personal experience, It’s kind of easy to fall behind. Especially since my other classes are not lenient at all and give a lot of work. Which is why many of my blogs were posted late. I did have a couple of missing assignments but thanks to my long weekends I’m able to catch up.

However, I’m so focused on writing the blog posts that I forget to comment on my classmates’ posts. I also forget to respond. That’s something I need to catch up on. But I get into this mode when I’m working on my post like nothing else matters but finishing my blog post. I also don’t participate during class time. This is mostly due to me being introverted and kind of shy. I told myself that I wasn’t going to miss any days during this semester but I ended up catching a cold for a week and missed a couple of days. So that streak ended. But thanks to the recordings I’m able to look back at what I missed. 

I’ve very proud of the improvement I have made in the past 7 weeks. When I was up late at night working on assignment 6 I got sidetracked and started to look at my previous blog posts. I didn’t realize how short my first blog post was but it also shows how far I’d come with my writing. My first couple of posts was just me testing the waters and doing the bare minimum of what I was supposed to do. But after the assignment where I had to talk about my passion, that’s when things started to take a turn for the better. 

When I started the “What’s Your Passion” assignment I saw this as a way to express something that I love. And thanks to this assignment I now draft all my blog posts in google docs. I went crazy in google docs, just nonstop writing. That post has the most words out of all my blog posts. 1,153 words I believe. My first blog post barely made it to 200 LOL. But I had a lot of fun working on that post and that motivated me to work hard on all my future assignments. 

This is also why I never went back to update my older blog posts. Sorry Professor, I have to get this one off my chest. When I would receive comments under a post I would acknowledge them and take them in. But I never went back to edit my post. Why, you ask. It’s because in the future I wanted to see how much I’ve improved. I would take the advice I receive and apply it to my future assignments so I won’t make that same mistake again. I look back on my old assignment and go “Wow, I actually made decent improvement since week 1”. 

Here are all my previous blogs in order starting at week 1 to week 6:

1. Happy On The Internet

2. GIFS, GIFS, More GIFS

3. Are You Memeing Me?

4. My Sims Obsession- I mean Passion

5. VOGUE

6. Build An Outfit

Over the duration of this semester, my blogging abilities have significantly improved. I can keep becoming better and determine whether communications is the right major for me by continuing to practice and improve my skills.