Week 13 – The Last Post

What a semester, what a year even. Finishing the PWR Showcase feels like we got over the top of the mountain, the climax of the semester, and are speeding down the other side to finish strong. It is crazy to think about how this time last year is when I decided to swap to a PWR major, and now my last semester is coming up next, time flies when you are having fun. I am very grateful for everyone who has been along for the journey.

This week, we submitted our final drafts of our Verification Quest websites, worked on our Twine games, and discussed how we can apply Verified in our future projects/what we took away from the book.

Finishing the Verification Quest was quite a satisfying challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed designing the site and getting everything setup, but putting the words in was a much harder task than I thought. Considering how I wanted to progress through the different variables in my research was crucial to getting the final product I wanted. I also had to seriously slow down and really establish what I was talking about and the points that I was researching. It is easy to get overwhelmed if you don’t specifically say “this is what I am going to prove/disprove”, and that is a skill I could still improve on. At the end of the day, going back through and making those changes, moving things around, and specifying in the areas I needed to specify gave me a product that I felt much more satisfied with. I could definitely see myself doing more thorough research and expanding this site to potentially use in the future.

My biggest takeaway from Verified is that it is extremely easy to misrepresent information, and it is the responsibility of the view to acknowledge that they do not know what they are looking at. Furthermore, they should have the skills to find more information to prove/disprove whatever is considering them. The majority of the people on the web are there to get your attention, and being mindful of what you let consume your attention is critical to being efficient. Overall, Verified really taught me that I should do enough research to know why I believe what I believe, beyond the basic “because I saw it on social media”.

Finally, the Twine game. That thing was brutal to start, I am not going to lie. There is something a lot more complicated about doing research, writing a story to go along with the research, coding that into a visually appealing game, and then adding elements to make the game entertaining. Tweaking the CSS to make the visuals work was very annoying, especially with the exporting to a file and then having to open it up and click through the game over, and over, and over. Maybe there is an easier way that I am missing. However, it is extremely satisfying when you finally have a working product.

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“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’” – Hunter S. Thompson

I wish everyone the best of luck in all future endeavors, and I hope life turns out better for you than you could have ever imagined.

Sincerely,

Bryson Chandler