Journal Entries Week 3: #2

Part A: Turn in final version of the project, collect pictures, videos of the project in Sopo to use as material for power point presentation

Part B:

I turned in the final version of the project. I received feedback from my supervisor today and she was extremely pleased with it. She mentioned that she sent it to the director of Fundacion Alpina to read it and to some co-workers involved in the Sopo project. I received very positive comments about it and I am excited to hear what the director, Eduardo Diaz has to say about it. Later in the day, my supervisor gave me time to collect pictures, videos and other material to take back to Dubuque and show for my presentation. She also gave me time to work on my final presentation for the CEL office because she told me she wanted to see it before I left.

After finishing my project, and being so close to the end of this experience, I learned extremely valuable skills and lessons that I will be able to use in my professional career. First, I learned skills that I thought I had before, but I realize that I strengthen them through this experience. I became a lot better with time management and organization. It was very important to keep these two together since I had to learn a significant amount of information in a very short period of time, and not only that but I had to apply it to analyze different projects. Furthermore, I learned how to create effective reports, and to evaluate important information based on theoretical knowledge and direct experience. A very important lesson that I learned was to be open to alternative was of working. Before this project, I used to be closed minded about alternative ways of developing tasks, since I believed that the way I worked was efficient and the best to go with. However, having Ana Maria as a mentor, opened new possibilities for me and although it does not sound important, she really helped me to learn how to listen and to open to alternative ways of working. I believe this is going to be extremely important for my future work opportunities since it helps me to work better in group.

Furthermore, given the nature of my project, which was research oriented, some major lessons I learned were: the importance of critical reading, as it is fundamental to understand and analyze the relevant information in projects and to use it for future analysis. Second, use that critical reading to analyze and evaluate documents, and create efficient reports and critiques about the information processed before. Third, to provide alternatives and solutions to existing problems. One of the advantages of having a project where I had the liberty to evaluate work previously done is that I could be creative and find multiple ways to approach the flaws or to identify potential benefits for the project.