Class Review

I came in to this class thinking I would hate it, but I loved it! It gave me a chance to rewind, then plan, then summarize. The homework was usually pretty easy to be motivated. I wanted to do the work, because it was often inspiring. If the assignment wasn't exciting it was at least something I felt was important to accomplish after brought to my attention. Working with Karen was refreshing and once everything was accomplished this class was sometimes calming.

This I believe...

The Survey

I usually feel like the idea survey gets in the way of what is scheduled for the class that particular day. I normally just give all the instructors fours and fives in every single category. However if I had an awful experience with an instructor I will take my time filling it out. If a particular instructor did great that quarter and I learned a lot in their class I will write something in the notes field informing the person reading the survey.

IDEA Objective 3: “Learning to Apply Course Material (to improve thinking, problem solving, and decisions).

 I feel that this class helps to organize the basic thoughts and objectives of an exiting college student. I feel this class is helpful and gives me the time to accomplish things I already planned on doing without them being assigned for a grade. I wouldn't say that I've learned much in this class, but that's okay because from my understanding it is mostly a review class. This class organizes my thoughts and I'd say that improves my thinking. We also review problem solving exercises to improve our decisions making.

IDEA Objective 8: “Developing skill in expressing myself orally or in writing.”

 It's been a while sense I've talked in front of a group of people about anything other than my designs or art work. It has been very helpful to present in front of this class about other things. It makes for great practice. If I personally would stay on top of the assignments in this class, I'm sure I'd be able to say the same about writing as well. I'm working on that issue.

IDEA Objective 10: “Developing a clearer understanding of, and commitment to, personal values."

I am definitely have developed a much clearer understanding of my personal values. As this class helps me to organize my thoughts it also gives me other things to think about and discuss with others outside of class. I'd say that the class has also helped me find a stronger commitment to my personal values. As I plan for the future, I see two paths. Theres a path I'd be content with, then there's a better path. There's a path I value, a path I believe in, and a path I want to commit to.

SWOT

I was absent last week so please bare with me if I'm doing this wrong. Anyway I've done many SWOT charts in the past, so this shouldn't be too difficult for me to blog about. My strengths consist of my talents and drive to keep creating new things. I'm very quick to learn new programs. I'm getting a lot better at making my talents into something profitable. Some weaknesses of mine would be that I am a huge procrastinator. I often let myself become committed to too many projects at once, and I despise any type of authority. Some opportunities I currently have are internships, and what ever class assignments I have left. These last view things will help to build my portfolio and/or resume. Some threats standing in my way are the obstacles I face outside of the classroom. My family is constantly struggling and I often put my loved ones before school. I need to really focus on my last few quarters before I can really help anybody else, but I constantly find myself falling behind this quarter.

ENTP/ENFP

For the most part I tend to agree with both personality profiles. I didn't read anything I disagreed with, but I think I most likely lean more towards one than the other on any given day. Some days I might lean more towards EN(T)P and some days I lean more towards EN(F)P. I guess it just depends on what activities my day consists of. Both personality profiles suggest that I'm creative, open-minded and outgoing. ENFPs are said to have issues with strict compliance to rules, regulations and procedures. ENTPs back up those same characteristics by struggling to deal with authority figures. I do find these issues extremely difficult to deal with. My ENTP profile suggests that entrepreneurship would be the ideal working situation for me. I agree with this to the fullest extent and have been planning to work for myself because I have my own vision and dreams I want to accomplish that don't involve following somebody else's rules or procedures. Sometimes I also have a short attention span which furthers my reasoning for not following somebody elses vision for too long. I have my own plans and my own idea of what life should be and I plan to make that vision come true. My ENFP profile says no life event is meaningless to me. I also agree with this statement because I feel that everything happens for a reason and every single experience I go through in life either helped me reach my goals or helped me to inspire another person strive for their own. I challenge everything I'm told and wouldn't want it any other way, and I encourage others to do the same. Somebody once told me, "it's better to be a wolf, than to be a sheep."

General Education Analysis

It's difficult for me to summarize all of my classes in one post, because I had very different experiences in each course. Some classes ranged from extremely difficult to very easy. Some classes I learned a lot of new material and other classes felt like eleven weeks worth of review. For instance, art history and design history felt very elementary for me. This isn't to take away any credit from my instructors. It's just that I was already well educated on most of these topics due to personal interests of mine. However, I wish I would have payed more attention in business law and career development. I say this because I found them very boring, and although I obtained decent grades in these courses I didn't walk away from them remembering a great deal of information. In a further note, some classes are so fun that I didn't even realize I was learning. These classes would include critical thinking, psychology, and world civilization. The instructors for these classes are well experienced and great at getting their students involved. However, I've never been a huge fan of math or Spanish and my attitude was reflected in my grade. As I think back and reflect on my overall general education there's just a massive spectrum of thoughts and feelings from all of these classes individually.

Life here at Ai

Hello, my name is Matt. I am a full time graphic design student at The Art Institute of Indianapolis. I have attended courses here for a little over three years. I am currently employed by the school as well and have been for the past two years. My job titles here at school include being a tutor as well as a Tech Cage student worker. I have found it quite helpful to be employed by the school because it is very convenient. It saves gas and I am constantly in contact with my instructors between classes. I enjoy working in the Cage more so than working as a tutor because it is more consistent as well as reliable. Up until these past few quarters I felt it was very easy to manage life, money, and class. However, here recently that has changed drastically. Although I am very proud of myself for accomplishing what I have so far I still feel December (my graduation date) is getting farther and farther away. For the longest time my struggles have been my motivation, but now those very same struggles seem to be overbearing. Moving forward I'd like to rediscover appreciation for what I have learned here thus far. This is what I plan to accomplish with this blog and the experiences it will focus on.