Skill Set Inventory

What is your favorite thing to do outside of school?  Playing various board and card games like Pandemic and Fluxx with my friends and also trying to design my own board game. (Which can also be quite frustrating at times.)  I also enjoy writing stories.

What is your favorite class and explain why it is your favorite?  My favorite class so far has been Digital Storytelling because I loved the group discussion aspect and I also enjoy coming up with and telling stories, and sharing them with others.

What are you good at doing in New Media?  I consider myself good at video and audio editing in the realm of New Media.  

What are you good at doing outside of New Media?  I am great at swimming competitively, specifically Freestyle and Backstroke, I was sectional champion at Freestyle twice in high school if that means anything.  I am also pretty good at writing and proofreading in general, as I do it a lot in my free time.

What is your favorite area of New Media (you don't have to be good at it, but you have to like whatever you talk about for this one?)  Video.

Do you prefer to work independently or in a group? Please explain why.  I prefer to work independently because it allows me to be in control of every facet of the project.  That being said, when I work in a group, I find that I generally get things done faster when a group is depending on me, when I'm alone, I find that I have a tendency to procrastinate.

What New Media classes have you had?   Introduction to New Media, Digital Storytelling, Intro to Video, Intro to Audio, Multimedia Authoring Tools, and I think that's all.  There might be one or two more thrown in there that I'm forgetting.

In a group project explain what you usually end up doing.  I usually end up presenting the project because I'm pretty good at talking in front of groups and giving speeches off the cuff, so I usually get put in that role.  I'm also end up doing a lot of the actual "grunt" work for a project, as in the actual construction of a project.  Usually I'm not too terribly good at the conceptualization of a project.

In a perfect group what would you like to end up working on? (i.e. hands-on work, research, presentation, web development, planning, etc.)  In a perfect group, hands-on work is what I enjoy the most.  I really like getting into the meat of something and starting with a blank page and finishing with something concrete.  

What is your opinion of group work? Please explain why.  It's a necessary evil.  It's evil in the fact that there are multiple viewpoints on how the project should be so you have to compromise the vision you have. (Something I hate doing.)  But it's necessary for time constraints and to make the best possible project.  Without multiple viewpoints, you'd never see some of the changes that end up making a project great rather than just good.  

How do you think other people would describe you?  Quiet for the most part but argumentative when they get to know me.

How would you describe yourself?  Stubborn and argumentative, but ultimately helpful.

What do you do when a group project goes bad?  Run in circles screaming bloody murder until a solution is found...  Not really.  Usually I try to find the most efficient way to fix the project and start communicating with the group more frequently.  I also usually start pouring more time into the project in order to fix it.

What is civic engagement in your opinion?  Civic engagement is doing something to benefit the community, like volunteering at a soup kitchen or the humane society.  It could even be something as small as planting a tree on Arbor Day.

What experience have you had working with community partners, either on your own, through school, church, or in any other capacity?  I've got a little bit of experience, I work for the Parks and Recreation Department in my hometown so I deal with the community every day in that job.  I was also a Boy Scout and am an Eagle Scout so I had to do quite a bit with the community through that.  And last year, in my class we were required to help promote a low-cost spay/neuter clinic in Fountain Square for the Indianapolis Humane Society, so I would also count that.

What do you know about Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB?)  Not much honestly, I know it's an organization here in Indy and I've seen some advertisements for it, but I've never actually researched it very thoroughly.  I'll probably end up Googling it after finishing this assignment.

How do you think New Media (the program and all its resources) could help the community in general, and KIB in particular?  Quite easily, I saw that last year when we helped the Indianapolis Humane Society.  There's a lot of talent in New Media that could be used to raise awareness for certain problems, by creating posters or fliers or bumper stickers or a plethora of other things that could notify people of the problem.  Also we could come up with solutions that use the newer technologies.  Really, I think that New Media can help a huge deal.

How could YOU help the community, and KIB, particularly in terms of New Media?  By advertising certain causes or notifying people to specific issues.  I could also use it to design certain things to be constructed to make certain parts of Indianapolis look nicer, through art/media.

What are your goals for this semester?  My goals for this semester are to make it better than last semester (I think that's always my goal...) through better attendance (something I've been bad about in the past) better study habits, and better planning.

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A dinosaur.  Actually, I really don't know what I want to be, I have a few ideas but nothing really concrete.  I'm kind of open for anything, particularly I want it to be related to video or film, or possibly theater, but honestly I'm not sure.