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I can’t believe the end of the semester is finally here! It is wild to think that this is my final blog post. 14 weeks went by really fast, a lot faster than I originally thought they would. So much has happened in this time that it is hard to believe it has been this long. I have been at my internship for over a month now, which is crazy to think about!

I have finished my classes completely, this blog is the last thing I needed to work on to complete everything. I have turned in all of my work in my other classes, and have now turned in everything for this class as well. I have turned in my internship documentation, my personal development plan, and now my internship blogs.

For my internship work, I am chugging along! I have still been working on the social media account I was assigned for November because I have looked at the schedule and the planned tweets document and saw that no one was really assigned to tweet anything out for December. I wanted to make sure the account was still active and gaining followers, so unless I see someone else working on it or get asked to work on another account, I will continue to work on this account to make sure it is still active.

I have finally finished my second draft of the video I have been working on, and am actually really proud of how it turned out! It took a couple of tweaking things I wasn’t too happy with, but I think it looks really good! If I have to make any more changes, I already have my assumptions of what should be changed and am prepared to make those changes. I sent it in and was told thank you, so I am assuming that if I don’t hear anything else, that it is good to go! I have other work to do, which is always nice. I have just been assigned another video to work on, but this is a promo video, which is a lot easier to work on than one I have to write, record, and edit myself. I have a structure to follow and it isn’t much to do. I am glad to have this change of pace, though. That other video was stressful!

Here is a link to it in google drive if anyone wants to check it out:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ayoe9Kbi14yPX85NlFSo2mfdPnmApw0t/view?usp=sharing

Overall, I guess I just wanted to say that I am really grateful for this class and where it has led me. Without it, I wouldn’t be working at the internship I am at now, which couldn’t be more perfect for me! I am so happy to have learned how to create a LinkedIn account, a Handshake profile, how to create a portfolio website for myself, and how to create a professional looking resume and cover letter. I had never had an internship before this and am so happy to know what it is like to work professionally in this field. I also am really grateful for all of the nice comments and helpful critiques I have gotten along the way from everyone!

It is so weird to believe that I was somewhat of a beginner when I entered this program. I wanted to expand my knowledge and help cover myself in job searches by having more knowledge in the tech field and make me a more viable candidate for graphic design jobs by having web design knowledge under my belt. Now, I know how to create websites by myself, style them the way I like, make them responsive, add animations, and so much more. I was really nervous for the internship aspect of this program, but am so glad that I went through with taking this program on because I really feel as though it has opened doors and led me on my way to a promising future!

These last few weeks have mainly been winding down the class and focusing on internship work. I have been making sure all of my final projects are in order and have turned in my internship documentation and worked on my personal development plan and turned that in as well. All I have left to do is work on these internship blogs. You would think with the end of the semester close by that there would be less work to do, but my head was spinning all of this past week trying to keep everything in order and finish up all of my classes! I am just glad the majority of the final work is done and over with now.

As for my internship, I sent out my evaluations for my internship documentation and received them back the same day with some really nice things being said about me! I am so glad my internship projects have been so nice and I have only received positive reviews! This was the last thing I needed to be able to turn my internship documentation in, and start on my personal development plan. I also received a new project to work on some lead images, which was actually pretty simple, and I was able to work on them and finish them by Wednesday, 2 days before they were expected to be handed back in.

Other than that, I have still been working on that pesky video! I redid my voiceover to be more enunciated, slow, and emotional. I have been editing everything to make it all smoother, including trimming empty pauses in the voiceover, trimming down video length, adding transitions, adding credits, and cropping the video sizes themselves to fit the screen better. It hasn’t been the easiest working in Rocketium, the video editor they want me to use, so I have been doing some of the things I can’t really do in that program, like editing the size of the video and fixing the voiceover length, in Adobe Premiere instead. Thankfully, I only have a little left to do before I turn it back in and hopefully can call it a day on this video! Maybe I will share the updated video next week if all goes well.

I don’t have as much to say this week as I did last week. I just have been working on the same thing pretty much the entire week. It doesn’t help that I didn’t do any internship work last Thursday and Friday due to the Thanksgiving holiday. I have mainly been working on making changes and updating the video I’ve been working on according to the critiques I got. I am not sure if I like this version better to be honest, but I wanted to add more visuals of the AudioCraft program itself into the video I am making about it. I have been screen recording clips and replaceing some of the videos and images with visuals more focused on AudioCraft and have been making sure to credit everything I used at the end. I am a little unsure of who/what to all credit since I have used copyright free images and videos for the most part, but I will figure it out this week. I also still have to re-record the voiceover. The revising of the video is taking me longer than making the rough draft!

I have also, today, been given another assignment of creating lead images for January 2024. As far as I know, it is basically the same thing as creating the social media graphics, so I am not concerned with how long it might take me since I feel like those assignments have been relatively easy, and fun, for me to work on. Besides all of that, I have been still running the Twitter account and I have gained a substantial amount of followers, which I am really proud of since I had never run a social media account for someone before!

Other than my internship work, I am slowly trying to close in on the rest of the semester. I have been trying to finish up classes as soon as I can so I don’t have to worry about any of it anymore. That includes getting my employment site as done as I can get it, getting my internship documents filled out so I can turn that all in, and working on my personal improvement and professional development plan, which I hope to work on and finish this week.

I also would like to end this post with a quick thank you to everyone who has left a comment on previous posts for all of the nice messages I have received. I have read them all and appreciated each one of them <3

This week has been quite a bit of work on my video. I had gotten my script approved after some initial small edits, and started working on video production. I have been editing the video basically this entire week and finally have a rough draft finished that I am really proud of! I had found visuals that I felt matched what I was looking for with the video, and included a voiceover on my video. I unfortunately can’t just place it here as the file size is too large, but I have a link to it in my google drive where you can watch it if you’d like. Here it is:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Yq27BGJQBKgAu_b57vl0zHUs3PSDl2ls/view?usp=sharing

I turned this in to my internship where I was told it was technically well done, but I could improve some things. I could add some more visuals, particularly from Meta about AudioCraft, and I could workshop my voiceover to go slower and show more emotion. I also was told to add a title slide, which I think is a really good idea. I was really greatful for all of the feedback I had received and am excited to make the changes necessary to make it a better viewing experience! I will most likely be working on this for the next coming weeks.

Other than that, I have been still actively updating the Twitter account I have been assigned for the month. It has been going really smoothly and I actually have amassed 40 followers since I started working on this account!

In terms of school work, I have been trying to make it easier on myself for the end of the semester by trying to finish up as much as I can. I have basically finished my employment seeking portfolio website, and I have done all of the other documents necessary to turn that in. I only need performance documents reviewed by my current internship and I can work on the personal improvement and professional development plan. That is really the only thing I have left to work on in this class, and it feels so good to think that everything is almost ready to turn in!

It is really weird to think the semester is almost over! Only one more month to go! I have been making sure I have everything ready for the end of the semester so it all goes as smoothly as it can for me. I have been responding to the discussions due, and working on the final projects for the class so that when the time comes, I just have to turn everything in. Thankfully, one of the assignments is this blog, and another is the documentation from each internship, so I don’t really have to worry about two assignments. I have been adding to and updating my portfolio/job seeking site lately. I worked on the checklist this past week and have created the program outcomes for that page on my site. I have also been making sure every finished project goes on to my portfolio page. I also have looked at the other assignment, but I can’t work on that until I get all of the performance review documentation from my internships, which I am hoping to get by the end of the month.

Other than that, I have been busy with internship work! I finished my newsletters. I had one critique on changing the subject line for when the emails go out, but otherwise, I was told I did a great job! I have consistently been working on the GlobalSearch4Ed Twitter account by liking and reposting tweets, as well as following and unfollowing people daily. I have seen some steady growth and it actually is kinda fun to look on Twitter for my internship! Besides that, I have been working on the video I have to make. I heard back from management on some changes to be made to my script, which was mainly just rewording some of my script. I was told it was really good, though, and I have finally started on the editing process. I have found some visuals to use, and have recorded a voiceover, so now it is time for me to put it all together. Hopefully I will have a finished product to share next week!

It is really wild to imagine just how much can get done in a week! I don’t really remember what has happened since last week and things are becoming more and more blurry with what I have done when, so there might be some overlap as to what has all happened since last week.

First, my logo has been approved! I had to create a logo for a country club, and the first iteration I had created had some little hiccups I needed to fix. I only had one image to go off of and it wasn’t the easiest to look at, especially when looking at it zoomed in, but another image was found of it that looked better and easier to recreate, and so I made the proper changes. The second image I used to recreate the logo had more vibrant colors, apparently the first one was pretty faded, and the image was bigger which was nice. I turned the logo in to my client, and he turned it into the board of the country club and it was unanimously approved!

Here it is:

Next, I have finished the script for the video I am to make! It still needs approval, but I have written a rough draft that I am pretty happy with. It is on AudioCraft, an AI program created by Meta that allows you to type in a prompt of music or sound effects you want to hear, with it then creating something for you to listen to. It is really interesting and I never realized that you can type in prompts for images and text for AI programs, but no audio or music. I am really nervous/excited to take the next step in creating this video, but I feel like the hardest part is over.

I also have been assigned a social media account to work on by my internship. It is a Twitter account with the handle @globalsearch4ed, and I have had to schedule tweets to come out for the month, as well as follow accounts, unfollow accounts, like, and repost things everyday. It has been interesting to see how it all works to schedule tweets, as well as figuring out how to amass more followers.

The last update I have is that I have also had to create some newsletters that are due Wednesday. It was pretty simple, I just had to follow their pre-existing template, but it was also quite a lot on my plate from this internship. It has been fun having different projects to work on, and I am glad the projects are easy to follow and work on, but it has left me overall exhausted by the end of the week between school work and internship projects. I have never used Constant Contact, a newsletter creator, before, but I am glad it has been simple to use. I have to send out a test email to the people that oversee my work, but I think it should be pretty easy to do. I hope it works and everything goes smoothly!

Here is an image of one of the newsletters I have completed:

Well, it is official, I am apart of a new internship! This week has been a lot of planning and getting signatures for my new internship, but I have also been able to start on a project. My first project for my internship was to create social media graphics for Twitter and Instagram for videos my internship company curated. I had to take a picture from each video, there were ten total, and place it on a page on canva, with the formatting staying the same as their other social media graphics. The assignment was really easy, and they liked the end result! Here is an image of one of the graphics as an example of what I had to do:

I already also have been given another assignment, this time a video on a topic they chose. It is about AI in audio and music, and I am excited yet nervous to tackle this because I have to write a script that has to be approved, as well as add my own voiceover to the project! I am not super well-versed in editing and know the basics, but since this is only supposed to be a little over 2 minutes long, I hope it will turn out okay!

For class work, I have been trying to get ahead on everything lately and make sure the end of the semester is smooth sailing. I have been responding to discussions that are due in a few weeks so that way I don’t forget I have to do them! Thankfully, I am keeping track of everything that needs to be done for the end of the semester, and I feel as though I don’t have too much work left for myself, which brings me relief and makes me feel a little less stressed out.

It is hard to believe another week has passed! It feels like it has been longer, and yet shorter since the last time I wrote here. There has been a lot that has happened since the last time I wrote here.

I finished the logo that I was working on for my last internship project! I had to make some revisions on my rough draft to make it look closer to the actual logo. I am waiting on a response to my edits to make sure that it looks up to par, but I have created a few different versions of the logo to make sure that at least one of the versions I made match what my client is looking for. Here is the second version of the logo I made for River Ridge Country Club:

It was hard to get a perfectly matching logo as there weren’t many images to base my recreation off of. I only had one to begin with, and then when asked for edits, I was provided with another image. There aren’t many images of it out there, and my client had to ask around to see if anyone had an image of the logo he was looking for. Nonetheless, I think I did a pretty good job making the logo look similar to what he was looking for!

In other news, applying to a bunch of different internships has finally paid off for me, as a month after applying to all of the internships I could find online that I was interested in, one reached out back to me with an offer! It is unfortunately unpaid, but it is remote, requires at least 10 hours a week that I can choose when to work, gives me a bunch of different project work I can add to my portfolio, and will last for a couple of months so I should be set on internship work for the rest of the year! I am really excited, and actually start today with working with everyone. They have told me that it is a priority to help me out and use this as a stepping stone to help me get a job in this area, which is so great. They even said that some interns like working with them so much that they have stayed for an entire year!

It is hard to believe another week has gone by and we are about halfway through the semester! If I had to express how I am feeling, I would say I am starting to burn out a bit. There is a lot to keep track of being in 5 classes as well as staying on top of finding and working on internship work. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about this class as much because I just have to focus on internship work right now.

Speaking of internship work, I got another internship project this past week! I am working on recreating a logo for a country club. The original logo has been lost and no one knows where the original jpeg is or who the artist was that created the original. I am working on a far away image that is not the best quality when blown up to look at more detail, so I am doing the best I can, but I think it is coming along. I am hoping to have it done by next week to be able to show it here on my blog and add it to my website.

This leads me to the last thing I want to talk about, which is other internship projects. I am grateful for this project and the reunion site, which I have still not fully completed as I am waiting on some last details, but I am still on the lookout for other projects. I especially am looking for paid projects as everything I have worked on so far, and a lot of projects I have come across, are unpaid. I plan on applying to more places this week and reaching out wherever I can to work on some websites or website-adjacent projects!

I don’t even really know where to start with my blog this week. I have been a bit consumed this past week with more personal situations. I adopted a cat this past week and have been mainly trying to adjust to life with my new cat, so my internship work has taken a bit of a backburner recently.

I have been still working with my client from my first project because the site isn’t completely done. Because this is a reunion site for a reunion next year, invitations won’t be sent until the beginning of next year, which means the site won’t be completely finished until the beginning of next year. I only really have to make updates by adding payment information as well as a menu, but that is mainly what I was working on with my internship this past week. There is a lot of testing that needs to be done to make sure everything works, and I have never added payment information to a website before so I hope it all goes smoothly. Creating the section to add a payment option wasn’t too hard, but I am nervous about how it will perform when people actually need to buy tickets.

Because I am on the tail end of what I need to do for the reunion site, I have begun looking for other types of internship projects I can work on, asking around to see if anyone would want me to work on a personal site, or a business site, or a page of a site, or social media for a business. Really anything I can find, I will take. I am ideally looking for project work and I know a few people who have websites I can hopefully work on. It has been a blast creating this last site and it is super easy to add to my portfolio site!