I have taken Com210 this semester as my major requirement, I didn’t expect I would like this class in the beginning. However, it became my favorite subject among all the courses I am taking. I have learned a lot of technical skills and essential knowledges about audio and graphics editing and the use of blog posts.
Among all of the projects in Com210 this semester, I like the Audio Story Project the most. For this assignment, we needed to create an audio project telling our own stories. I chose to tell the story about my trip going back to Australia with my family and boyfriend last Christmas holiday. Starting from this assignment, I started to use Adobe Audition CC, it is a great audio editing program that allows you to edit your recordings to suit your needs. I found it interesting and very useful on practical terms because I recorded myself using the recording tool on Adobe Audition, then I cut the recordings using razor tool, I also chose my own background music so it enlightens the mood of my story. It was challenging but fun to edit the recordings, through this project I learned invaluable skills: I learned the basic concepts to audio editing and the overall structure of editing programs. I also learned to put effects to my music to suit the need of the project.
Other than the invaluable audio editing skills I learned through the Audio Story Project, I also got the chance to learn and practice my Photoshop skills using adobe Photoshop, I edited several different pictures about my trip to Australia. Throughout the process I picked up a lot of knowledge from the tutorials regarding the basic concepts of graphics editing such as layers and cutting. I also learned how to apply some of the basic effects to my images and texts, this provided me with countless varieties and opportunities to my posters. These skills opened up my interest towards audio and graphics editing, there are challenging and sometimes difficult to understand, but the sense of accomplishment I felt when I look at my finished work was worth it all.
My dream career would be to become a successful broadcaster or journalist. From my point of view, both of the careers require technical and communication skills. Audio editing skills can benefit both my career as a broadcaster or a journalist. The understanding of how these programs work will provide me with a higher starting point than those who don’t, and increases my efficiency when working around projects that involves audio editing. Photoshop skills will be an essential element for me in the future because as a journalism major, it will be useful for me to know editing skills to edit pictures for newspapers or magazines. However, it would be more amazing if I could get to learn how to change the effects of my video, for example to adjust the sound, the light and the filter. Although this skill is not that much related to my desired career in broadcasting or being a journalist. It is a very useful skill that I am interested in myself. If I learned this skill it would definitely open up my potential career paths and my opportunities.
There were other ways that I found quite helpful while I was completing my projects. For example, I searched some tutorial videos on YouTube that were very useful to me, for example, when I was doing premiere tutorial, I looked for some videos of what is the difference between wide shots and close shots, and how to put recordings and videos together. The videos helped a lot to my project, I would recommend this source of information to all of those attempting for any similar project. My only suggestion for this course is that: sometimes I have troubles doing the project, I found it difficult to use the graphic editing programs. Therefore, It will be better if during one lab session, the TA could show us how to use the programs. It doesn’t have to be detailed, it could be introduction of how to use the programs, what are the tools for and giving some useful tips.
In conclusion, I have gained a lot of experiences and learned a lot through course Com210, it has also became one of my favorite classes I have ever taken. I am looking forward to practicing more technological skills in the future and I am sure what I have learned in this class would be extremely beneficial in my future career.
The Com210 Blog 