Reflection
This week I am wrapping up my first 8-week course in my final year a graduate school for my Master's in Library and Information Sciences (MLIS). In my first blog post, towards the end I had attached a gif that showed a sense of uneasiness to describe my emotions feeling about the course ahead. It has been insightful and overwhelming. I have been stressed out yet also genuinely enjoyed this class much more than other course I have taken thus far in my graduate studies.
This course took me about 3-4 weeks to overcome my anxiety for posting a blog. I have even had thoughts here and there that I may continue to post in the future either to build a professional digital archive or casually. Blogging weekly took me back to my LiveJournal days in middle school when I used to post regularly all my thoughts and experiences unfiltered. I am pretty sure I deleted it...hopefully...
The last 8 weeks have allowed me to explore some pretty big topics and ideas with certain technologies. In my career, I am not one to shy away from new technology as a promise I am determined to always keep to my younger self to never turn into a stubborn old person who has resisted so long and has become helpless and left behind. I never want to be ignorant in that aspect, so I embrace new technologies and will continue to push myself into learning.
The topic that impacted me the most in this 8-week course was an exercise we did about our digital dependency. I learned about the difference between digital residents and digital visitors and was forced to face something I was afraid of acknowledging about myself, that is how much of a resident I am on certain phone applications. It was eye-opening and brought me to reflect on how I want to change my unhealthy use of digital applications. I was averaging over 4 hours a day on TikTok and since becoming aware of this alarming fact, I have been actively monitoring my use on the app and have been able to get my screen time down to 2.5 hours a day. I still would like to continue to drop that average down more as I have been able to feel a bit more focused at work and getting better sleep since I am not up in the late hours scrolling endlessly. I also enjoyed thoroughly the curated collections my classmates and I created this semester. I currently have a separate internet window popped open with 11 of the curated collections I found useful for my career or something that piqued my curiosity.
As fun as this course has been, I am done. It is justifiably a heavier workload since it is a shorter time frame. Combining the demands of this class with other courses, a full-time job, and unfortunately a lot of stressful events going on in my personal life, I have been fighting off a breakdown for a couple weeks. 🙃 I wish everyone the best of luck in their careers! Here's a final gif that I think shows how I feel at the end of this course.
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