Questions

• 1. Over the past couple of weeks you have likely spent a noticeable amount of time working on your final project. What has been the most challenging aspect, and what helped you overcome this challenge? (You may think of things that you did, strategies that you employed, or tools and resources that you used).
     • Time management
       • I think a challenge that I faced over the weekend was the underestimation of the amount of time that would be required to complete the project draft. Because we had our outline completed, and we had been taking notes of the information that we would want to use on our draft, I thought a day would be sufficient. It took more time to synthesize of information from here and there and to write about them so that they flow well. We were able to complete our project by the extended deadline. For next time, I should allocate more time in writing the background and introduction section – or complete writing it before hand, while I am searching for information.
       • I think we were pretty good at continuously working on the project over the term. Shannah and I met once a week to discuss about our progress and the direction that we would want to go towards.
     • Being on track
       • I think I also spent a lot of time reading articles that were not super necessary for the progress of the project. I was able to later realize that I wouldn’t have to spend so much on such a topic, but the time to get to that realization was long. I hope I can develop a better skill for that. I’m not sure how – by experience?
  2. So far, what do you feel that you have learned (or, what skills have you improved) as a result of working on your project? Is this something that you expected? Have there been any surprises?
     • Reading papers
       • In the beginning, it took a long time to understand what the article was talking about, and what information would be useful for my project. Later on, as I got more familiar with the terms as well as an idea of what the general outline of the project would be, I became faster in gathering information (yet I would still sometimes get off track…).
       • Learning from research articles was one of the challenges that I listed in the beginning of the term. Through this experience, I learned that when I can’t understand the concept by reading one article, I could look into another article related to the topic. One article would have the details not provided in the other. Also, going into the referenced article also helped gain more information and understand what was going on.