Class Reflection
Desktop Publishing was a class that I didn’t even know existed until half-way through my freshman year of high school. I remember looking at the description for the class, and becoming really excited when I realized it combined my hobbies and my future career. I want to go into computer forensics, I love to design things, and I only had one elective spot open for my entire sophomore year. I decided to sign up, and I am extremely happy that I did. I have learned so many useful skills, and have improved on many of my weaknesses in writing. One of them being editing. I usually don’t like it when someone else peer edits my papers, or like to spend much time on revising my writing. However, throughout the semester I have realized the importance of editing, and have become more of a perfectionist along the way. Instead of just adding words to fill space, I find myself striving to make my words have meaning, and wanting to sound entertaining. Although I am happy that I learned how to become a better writer, there definitely came challenges. Especially when inserting my writing into the actual piece that I was working on. The biggest one being text boxes. Microsoft publisher does not like images, and text boxes overlapping or even being remotely near each other. I quickly had to figure out how to use the move forward and move backward button, and how to shorten my passages to make the text fit nicely into whatever I was making. Other tools on publisher, that I exercised regularly were any of the tools in the insert bar. Borders and Accents is my favorite, and I used a lot of these in my favorite project this year; the spring break brochure. If you were to ask me how I liked doing the brochure while I was making it, I would've told you I didn’t like it at all. The brochure took about two and a half weeks to finish, but at least I was able to work at my own pace, which allowed for me to stay calm and focus only on the quality of the project. It was a challenge to try to fit so much information onto just one piece of paper, and still have it be organized. Despite the many obstacles, the project became more fun once I was finished with all of the outlining and writing, and was only left with the design aspect of the brochure. At the end of the process of making the brochure, I was extremely proud of myself, and my perseverance. I suggest that you take this course if you are willing to have an open mind, and willing to continuously learn how to overcome struggles throughout the class.