Alyssa Hillman: Honest to Blog

I am not going to lie, I have been slightly nervous about this course ever since I saw my course line up last year. I heard rumors about people sleeping in the labs just to finish on time and having to wait in two hour lines outside the professors office just for some advice. On the contrary to those things, I thought it was extremely helpful and not only increased my knowledge in the Adobe programs but increased my confidence in my creative ability.

I was most impacted by the actual projects. They were each thought provoking and meant to strengthen your abilities. After finished four of the five projects, I would say that I have a sound knowledge of InDesign and Illustrator, and we will see about PhotoShop. The best learning took place when I was just sitting in the lab with my iPod trying different things/tools and then asking peers for advice.

Lab did not help me very much though. Like what I said earlier, I found myself looking to upperclassmen and friends that have taken the class before, rather than my lab TA. Something that contributed to the problem was that my TA had to deal with students from all of the different GRA 217 classes. All of the professors had different requirements and preferences which may have made it hard to give advice.

A frustration that I had was not with the course but more with my skill set. I know now where my strengths are and where my weaknesses come in. After GRA, I can see that I do have some creativity and have a knack for good ideas, but when it comes down to the production part, I have little patience. I would do all of my sketching and planning outside the labs and spend as little of time there as possible. There are benefits to this system, but I think that because I had a plan for every project, I missed out on experimenting and seeing what happens.

Wow, this is long, but in the long scheme of GRA 217, I did have a lot of fun with the projects, but there were times that I was frustrated with the programs, TAs, requirements and myself.