Woah – what a time it has been. I can still remember my nervous self on the first day of university at RMIT, unfamiliar and unacquainted with the people and the place. But now I am here, 13 weeks later, familiar with the nooks and crannies of the campus and even more so with the wonderfully, friendly people that walk about it. Now, time to reflect on the past few months of the Media course, and what it has led me to learn.

I could talk forever about what I have learned about making media, but I have done this throughout the Project Brief reflections, and I would like to focus on something else for this last final reflection. What I have fore-mostly learned from this course is that communication and interaction is essential – whether is be professionally, academically or on more casual means. Learning of new online, digital platforms to communicate and share information, (such as Google Drive and Google Docs) led me to realise how easy it is to keep people in a professional working environment up to date with project developments and final submissions. I can now utilise these resources in future ventures. Academically, interacting and communicating with fellow students and tutors/lecturers regularly, really does improve comfortability to come forward in asking for help/feedback, and contributing to class discussions truly did improve my ability to learn from the subject. Finally, just opening up and talking to all of the new people I’ve met in the course has allowed myself to gain confidence in working in unfamiliar territories and led me to meeting some truly friendly, creative and talented people, who I get to look forward to working with in the future.

The way that I learn is probably more classical than progressive. I listen, take/draw notes, discuss the material being taught with peers, reflect on the notes, refine the notes and re-read the notes. But this is just the way that suits me fine, and seems to have worked thus far. However, what I seem to be taking more of an interest and liking to, is association. Associating what I have learnt, with something similar, but also different. Thinking of what I have just been taught and told, is relative to something else, or how I can make it relative to anything else. Additionally, receiving feedback and criticism on my work, also assists me in looking for improvements or new directions with any given task or assignment. I have realised all of this throughout the duration of this semester.

Although Media 1 and the first semester of university has been an exciting, interesting and beneficial experience, it came with its moments of stress and places of challenge. Keeping up to date (particularly the blogs) with the workload was at times hard to bear. I seemed to be putting off such simple tasks as writing blog posts and doing the readings. This may have been due to a little lack of understanding I had with what exactly to present/make of it all. But after turning to fellow peers for help, and keeping a close eye on the blogs of other students in the Media 1 class, I realised that the blogs and readings were not as tedious as I thought of them to be. I then really embraced the opportunity to reflect on the Media 1 course, as well as offering my own thoughts, interests and adventures relative to myself and the course.

Regarding my own creative practices, I have forwardly discovered just to be honest with my work and not to be afraid to present my work to other people. As long as I can critically explain, evaluate and analyse my creative outlets, they can be understood or even appreciated by an audience. Further, through the progression of this course, it has been consolidated to me that the planning and pre-production stages of an assignment or piece of work, is vital in being able to present a concise artefact of media.