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Fundamentals of Digital Media Course Reflection

      As many of you are aware, I am currently taking a course in Fundamentals of Digital Media, which is the primary reason for this blog's existence. My major is in computer science and engineering, so an art course is not something I normally would have taken. However, I am going to pursue a minor in visual effects and animation, so here I am. Before taking this course, I never really took an art course just like this one. Of course, I took the elementary art classes where you try and make a prescribed shape out of clay or draw/paint an object. But I've never taken a course that pushed me to come up with my own projects. They were always: draw this pencil or make this owl. This course, however, pushed me to become imaginative and creative in ways that those other classes did not. There were prescribed projects, but they gave me freedom to really explore being an artist. For example my ascii project, the only guidelines given were: use this program to make a drawing. There were a few examples given, but nothing that strictly told us what to do. I think this is the greatest skill that this course has given me. I have learned about how inspiration can just creep out of nowhere; how one can use the inspiration to tackle problems in a creative way. So yes, I did learn how to use programs to create vector graphics and how to take and edit photos. But the lesson that will stay with me forever is the importance of inspiration and how approaching a problem from a different angle can reap enormous benefits. This idea can even cross over to problems that I encounter in my engineering curriculum.  Thank you all for following my blog. Who knows, I might just keep posting to it after this class is over.
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