New Media 2013 Journal Evaluation (written April 2014)

This journal covered my final projects of the first year of my Foundation Degree. As far as the quality of the writing is concerned in this journal, it has still remained very detailed, very lengthy and very personal. One thing I feel I have always been good at is letting others know how I feel, and this is certainly seen in the reflective learning journal entries so far. I will always write how I feel about the lectures and the coursework, and whether I have felt nervous, happy or upset with how each lesson, each day, my coursework, or even an event in my personal life has gone.

I also feel that, along with my previous collection of journal entries, I do discuss events in my personal life a lot too, which can often have an effect on how I feel when I am at college, and at times has influenced my own work. Examples of this include my trip to Paris, counselling I was receiving at the time and my birthday.

Something new I have added to this journal is coursework and research for certain modules! I can't remember if it was assigned that I wrote certain aspects of my research and coursework, but I felt it was a good way to record the coursework, as it kept a lot of my work in one place. It also reminds me now of what I was doing at college back then. I do feel that I am still a bit disorganised with recording my research, and I feel that doing loads of research to justify my work is something I will definitely not miss after I finish my Foundation Degree.

However, I do feel that the quality of my posts declined a bit towards the end of this journal, as I felt I was being more descriptive and less reflective. I also noticed I was posting pictures a lot less often, which is a shame because I feel pictures make the written work much more interesting and also makes it easier for the reader(s) to understand and explains your work well too. This may have been because, especially towards the end of the year there is lots of other coursework to do. I also discovered a new career opportunity that I could follow during this time, looking into Art Therapy, which really motivated me to do well on my Foundation Degree, and even though before I was considering creative writing, because I felt I was good at writing, this may have affected my journal and written work, causing me to be less focused on it. I do feel that, possibly because my life is pretty good right now, and because I have other significant things going on in my life right now, I don't want to write so much down in my personal life these days, but this did certainly help to explain how I was feeling and how it affected my studying last year.

There were also some journal entries I forgot to finish. For example I would write "..... because..." or "Lynda said..." without typing much else afterwards. This was just because I forgot to, and was a bit careless when writing the journals. When writing the journals, I probably found it easy to procrastinate onto something completely unrelated to my coursework or maybe I would move onto other work in the middle of writing journal, and forgetting to come back to this. At times I probably still do that now!

I was also comparing myself to when I was on the BTEC course quite a bit, as I remember voluntarily writing something similar to a reflective journal back then, to express my thoughts and feelings about college and relationships with friends, family and lecturers. I even wrote briefly about looking back at these journal entries on the Interactive Media course on 14th March 2013.

As for how I was feeling about college and the Foundation Degree, I feel that since receiving counselling and receiving a leaflet explaining to me about Shyness and Social Anxiety in March, as well as all the social situations I was involved with in Paris, socialising at college became much better. I remember writing about the Paris trip when Michelle, who acted as a mentor to me during the trip, did mention that, even though I doubted it at times I was "mixing well with the people on the trip"This support did mean a lot to me, and I feel that this trip definitely did help with me mixing with others around college. Since then, because most of the people I knew around college have left college, I miss those people, but since then, the socialising at college hasn't been too bad. I am still occasionally in touch with a few people from last year too.

However, the workload was quite stressful, especially with coming to terms of how Neil structured the work, especially the research and planning parts of the module. I think at the time I did feel a bit uncomfortable around him, and at times I did find it difficult to take his feedback, especially on the 17th April after I had done some concept sketches for trading card characters.

I think to be honest both Neil and myself have learned from these experiences. I think I have learned to be more open to suggestions, and having a clearer goal for what to do after my Foundation Degree has really motivated me to do well as well. I have also learned to be more on track with my projects. I think Neil is much more constructive with feedback now and knows me a lot better, so would know what would make me upset.

However, looking back, Neil B was right about some things, such as one project idea being too ambitious, and having varying designs. I probably felt I had done a lot of work at this point, I had a lot on my mind, and this caused upset and frustration.

However, since this, Neil and I have got on much better and have not been too upset at college since then. I also remember several 1 to 1 meetings with Neil which included my support as well where several things were being discussed, such as possible future career paths, which I feel has hugely motivated me to do well on the course, and how I was currently doing, which at the time needed improvement. I definitely did notice this at the time, and I feel that since this, I have definitely tried much harder on the Degree and have got on much better with everyone at college and am much happier at college.

I also needed to record in my journal some new Maya techniques, such as the cloth technique and tornado technique. Also couldn't remember how to backface culling/reverse normals, a bit like the present day, so recorded that in this journal as well. I feel that recording new things I've learned is really important, as I'm more likely to remember them, even though I don't and to be honest, it's probably quicker to search online how to do something in particular in Maya. I still feel it is important to record new things I've learned, as it's really like recording research.

I think for a lot of the first year of the Foundation Degree I struggled to settle in to the new course, having a significantly greater amount of work expected from me, as well as mixing with and meeting new people, all of which was quite difficult. However, over time, and especially after making new friends on the Paris trip and having a clearer goal of what I wanted to do after the Foundation Degree, I did start to feel overall more positive at college.

Oxford Trip Key Learning Experience

Oxford was a very eventful day, and I ended up visiting many different areas of Oxford, and I did feel that not only did I find lots of interesting things in the museums for inspiration, I feel that this trip has also helped me to grow as a person in terms of independence, and strength of character, amongst many different other things.

I feel this way because initially I was a bit reluctant to go, but I feel that I handled myself very well, and was able to freely explore the museums and the town itself very well, and it also made me feel like I could accomplish almost anything!

So I'd say it did make me realise a bit more how much I have overcome since the dark days of High School, where I was struggling to cope with almost anything (there were times when I felt I couldn't even leave my own house on my own, let alone go on a trip for a full day!) and I was pleased with the fact I could freely walk around an unfamiliar city on my own and still find my way back to the coach on time!

It especially meant a lot getting praise from my parents, who said that they were both very proud of me for going, and it meant a lot that they did reward me for what I had achieved today.

I feel that from today I could try visiting even more unfamiliar places, making me feel brave and adventurous, and it is fun doing that sort of thing, but I will say that it would have been even better if it wasn't raining all day!

Oxford Trip Topic 5: Returning Home

Because it was a trip, it was a much longer day than usual, so we arrived back in Stafford at around 6pm on the 14th May 2013, where I met with my dad who took me back home.

I felt quite tired, but I felt that it was a good day out, even if I felt it did distract me from my other projects. Mum made me a lovely dinner and both mum and dad said how proud they were of me, as originally I wasn't sure whether I really wanted to go, but I thought it was a place I have never been to before, which made me feel quite adventurous and brave, and even though in the end I didn't, I thought it could have been an opportunity to get to know some of the Foundation Degree students a lot better. So I did feel quite pleased with myself, and it did make me feel like I could cope in many uncomfortable situations.

As a reward, my mum wrote a lovely message saying well done for today and how much she missed me, and game me a present in the form of a Wreck it Ralph magazine, which was a lovely treat after a challenging day, and I did really enjoy reading this too!

Oxford Trip Study Tasks.

In this task we had to find 2 items and create a study of them, such as drawing them, which is what I have done. I would have liked to have had a little bit more time to this task, but due to other outstanding projects, I have only spent around 5-10 minutes on each study.

Study 1: Discus Athlete, Ashmolean Museum

Study 2:  Tyrannosaurus Rex, Natural History Museum

Oxford Trip Topic 4: the Town itself

Although this was a college trip where the aim of it was to look at museums and galleries, I did give myself the chance to explore some of the other parts of Oxford, including its shops and restaurants. I would say that it does have a nice high street, with many different shops and eating places to look in and buy things from. I was pleased that their HMV was still open!

I also looked around many other shops, and was pleased that they had a Shopping Centre tucked away in one of the corners of one of the streets, which contained Primark and Game, so had a good look in there, and thought it was a really nice place to come shopping again one day!

Also, even though I had already had my lunch that day, I did feel quite peckish, so just before I boarded the coach I bought myself a Chicken Burger from KFC to eat on the coach too!

Oxford Trip Topic 3: the Natural History Museum

Even though we only saw the inside of this museum because we had to walk through it to get in and out of the Pitts museum where we intended to go, I did find the things on display that we did see, whether they were finished and ready or they weren't, very interesting. There was a very detailed display on the evolution of man, and many displays about monkeys, which I found to be impressive, as well as a life sized DNA helix strand.

However, some of my favourite displays I saw were when we were leaving. There was a huge Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton, which I wasn't sure was ready for display yet, which looked really cool, and I could easily see me creating something in the future that is to do with dinosaurs (there are also many books about dinosaurs too, so researching them wouldn't be too bad either,) and there were also some interesting crystals and rocks too, which unlike other displays we could actually touch them!

One other artefact I found interesting was something about a bacteria cell, and the insides of them as well

So even though we were only in there for a short time, I did enjoy the Natural History Museum in Oxford.

Oxford Trip Topic 2: the Pitts Museum

After looking around the Ashmolean for around three hours, and I still felt that there was more to see, myself, some of the other students and lecturers moved on to other museums. The next museum we visited was the Pitts museum, which we had to walk through some unfinished, but impressive displays in the Oxford Natural History museum to get there.

To be honest I did find the Pitts museum to be quite cluttered and dark, and there were also lots of excitable schoolchildren running around the museum, there were still a few interesting things on display, and the layout of the museum did remind me of a potential game level, which did feel quite exciting. There was a large totem pole towards the back of the museum, spanning all three floors of the museum, which I particularly liked, due to it standing out and its grand scale, but there were also other things that reminded me of my childhood displayed there, such as ice skates, both old and new.

I did feel that there were a lot of textiles and fashion based items on display, of both old fashion and some things I could see people wearing today at the Pitts museum, so I feel that it would be a much more inspiring place for people particularly interested in fashion. There were also a very wide variety of items on display, which I did appreciate.

I wouldn't say the museum was as good as the Ashmolean, or any museum or gallery I visited in Paris for that matter, and I wouldn't say I could spend more than an hour or two there without getting a bit bored, but I still appreciate looking around these places, and the things they have on display, because they are still ver creative and historic.