Week Two Reflection!

Week two of my senior project was definitely the week of learning.  I completed the tasks at hand that were necessary to complete so that I would stay on schedule but more than that, I learned life lessons along the way.

Before I speak about everything that I learned, lets go over the tasks that I completed.  I created an organizational system that keeps the many questionnaires that I received organized so that created stats would be efficient and easy.  All questionnaires were distributed and then collected through a box that was placed outside of the faculty room by our schools mailbox system.  I also chose a layout and publishing method that I believe will be the most sophisticated for the material I have access to.  Lastly all of the illustration aspects of this book were completed through photography.  This upcoming week holds a lot of detail work, math and writing.  I will be using the results to compile statistics expressing the opinions of the students who completed the questionnaires.  After the math part is all complete I will be doing one write up per questionnaire to try and put some meaning and though behind the statistical results.  This information will come from each survey that asked the students why they chose the answers they did.  After all the grit work is done, I will begin to put my book together and have the final project.

As for personal lessons I learned this week, I learned a lot about how to deal with disappointment and how to make the best of every situation.  When it came to the surveys a lot of students chose not to fill them out, which is when I learned about what an assumption is.  Getting a 1-3% return is admirable and then you take that result and apply it to the larger student body that you actually surveyed and it becomes an assumption, when talking about statistics.  At first I was really upset to go over by the mailboxes and find about 75 unfilled questionnaires piled in the recycling bin, the only reason that it upset me so much is because I took a lot of time trying to make, print and distribute these questionnaires and no one was taking the 1 minute to fill them out.  I understand that surveys are generally not answered but my general thought was because I was a member of a smaller community that maybe students would relate and fill them out because they knew who i was and what I was working towards.  At the end of the day I talked to both Diane and Sue and they assured me that the result I had received would be plenty to complete my project and to not let it bother me.  It was a week for dealing with frustrations, which I believe is a great lesson to learn while you are still in a small and safe community because the real amount of pain and frustration is rather small.  I am just thankful that we all go to a school where the adults are so comforting and helpful when they see how upset someone can get no matter how important or unimportant.

So all and all I believe that it was a very successful week from both a professional and personal standpoint.  This upcoming week is the last one so stay tuned and see how everything pans out.  Thanks!