Closing Reflections

Well, the day is finally here! As of this blog post, I have finally concluded my Independent Study following Photojournalism. I have written some closing reflections for all those curious about how my study went:

I think the content that was most important from this learning experience wasn’t the books or materials themselves, but what I learned about myself in the process. I learned a lot about my learning style and my work ethic. This knowledge will follow me wherever I go in life and it will help me to advocate for myself and better my work ethic and habits. 

I think a new question I might want to pursue in a different context is the idea of news photography and its role in our society. Through taking photos all the time and trying to find the deeper meaning behind them I felt as though I was always creating a story to share with someone. This is when I began to ask myself “is this what news photographers feel?”, they are always looking for a story, so I think that would be really interesting to explore. 

Something that didn’t work well was trying to do readings without writing down a plan for myself. In the beginning I tried to just do readings every other day when I had class and I found that I couldn’t keep track of them after a certain amount of time. So I started writing down which readings I needed to do on which days which made it way easier. This was surprisingly helpful because it helped me tailor the rest of the semester on which methods worked best for me. I was able to write down everything that I wanted to accomplish and it helped me get it done. 

I think DA supported my studies in a good and curious way. My advisors and friends were always curious to learn about what I had been studying when they learned that I was doing an independent study. When some people would hear about it, they would offer me resources to further my knowledge and people to talk to if I wanted first hand sources. It was really great to be able to share my curiosity with others and others wanting to help me learn more. 

My culminating project is probably something that I am most proud of in my academic career. It brought together all of the photos, ideas, and knowledge that I have been most proud of in the past 5 months and made it tangible. The ability to turn my knowledge and hard work into something tangible was so  rewarding because I was finally able to share it with others. Because it is a paper book, I do wish I had made an online copy to share with people I normally don’t see. 

Like I said before, I think the biggest thing I will take away from this study is learning about my own learning styles and methods. I will take that all throughout my life as a mode of self-advocacy when something just isn’t clicking. So, my biggest piece of advice I would give to a future study student is as important as gaining knowledge about your topic is, take time to observe yourself and how your mind works. Because once you understand how your mind works, learning becomes fun and you will never want your study to end. 

Thank you to everyone that helped me along this journey and I will never forget what I learned in this study!