Saturday, May 16, 2009

Time Well Spent

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you probably know that this past week marked the conclusion of final exams and the official end of our semester at Temple.

My last final was on Wednesday and was for my Cyberspace and Society class, a computer and information science class that explores today's computer technology.

I originally took this class because I needed a second level science course that didn't seem too hard; I must admit that I had little or no interest in the coursework, although I did recognize that the skills I would learn may be helpful to know at some point in time.

Studying for this last exam gave me a chance to reflect on what I had learned over the course of the past 15 weeks, and suddenly a semester's worth of seemingly annoying projects took on a new level of significance. Although I did not particularly enjoy the class, I am shocked at the amount of skills that I have learned as a result.

Because of this class, I now have:
  • An understanding of HTML
  • Experience with Adobe Dreamweaver software and website-building
  • Experience shooting a digital video and editing and compiling a finished product using Windows MovieMaker
  • Experience posting a video to YouTube
  • Experience using a wiki to complete group work

After realizing how much I had learned, it became clear to me that this class did not simply teach me the technical workings of technology. Instead, this class helped me diversify my skill set as a future public relations professional.

I was reminded of the Careers 101 event hosted by the Philadelphia Public Relations Association in March, where the panelists stressed the need for students to have experience with- and an understanding of- web-based media.

Although I took this course to satisfy a requirement, I feel that skills that I learned in this class may actually apply directly to my future career and give me a competitive edge in the job market. So, time spent on projects that seemed annoying in the moment ended up amounting into time well spent.

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