Day 1: The final stretch!! I spent all day working on applications for Jesse’s part of project #1. I met with James and Alyssa in the morning and then I met with Alyssa a few times throughout the rest of the day for feedback. It felt strangely normal and I had almost forgotten that my time working with all these wonderful people was coming to an end.
Day 2: The final day!! I spent the morning sitting in on a pre-production meeting for an ad project. It was interesting to see how much planning went into shoots. I spent the rest of the day wrapping up project #1. James was busy so I just plopped the items I wanted feedback on into our Teams chat and met with Alyssa a couple of times throughout the day. I had a brief chat with Erica about wrapping up practicum and exchanged thank yous with everyone. Friday was sort of my official send-off day and so today was actually very anticlimactic. At the end of the day, I packaged my working files and posted a final thank you message in the PSDDB Teams channel.
Final thoughts: Overall, my practicum was super fun and challenging! James was a great host, I got to meet and work with the immensely talented Jesse and I got to meet some incredible people as well! I got so many book recommendations I could start a small library and everyone was so welcoming and patient! They also accommodated my interests by letting me sit in on advertising project meetings.
Although my last year of school was done fully online/remote, I’m so grateful for the experience. It was full of struggles but without my long commute and outside distractions, I was able to really sit down and get my work done and improve my organization skills. It forced me to pay attention to my health and integrate proper self-care. It also helped that the instructors worked really hard to make the transition from in-person to online practically seamless. Everything was well organized and I felt very supported even though we were apart.
I’m extremely grateful for my class (SHOUTOUT TO IDEA 21). Since our class was already super tightly knit from our years together on campus, we were more comfortable working and meeting together online both in class and during our personal work time. We also put in the extra time to play online games together after classes or in the evening on weekends. I still miss all of the people from IDEA 21 dearly and I’m waiting for the days where we would be able to see each other in person.
Bonus: My family and I adopted a cat! She’s officially my sister’s cat but we all play and take care of her. Her name is Luna and she’s a super photogenic ball of sunshine who loves chin scratches and says hello doing a trill + meow combo that makes her sound like a Pokemon.
