Colin’s Senior Project

  Day #14 Tuesday- May 24rd Hours Logged- 4 Hours Project Total- 58 hours Time- 8:25 Today marked the completion of my academic concentration and my senior project. I finished the final parts of my trifold once I got a new roll of tape. I also met with Ryan for an interview about my time as a Proctor student which included some highlights on my concentration study over my upperclassmen years. I spent most of the afternoon helping the mountain classroom group clean all of their gear out and had a great time doing so. It was a pretty long two weeks working on this project, but I couldn’t be more proud of the work that I have done. My plan for tomorrow is to relax and get all of my papers officially signed. I can’t wait to present my work one final time at express fest tomorrow. 

  Day #13 Monday- May 23rd Hours Logged- 4 Hours Project Total- 54 hours Time- 8:57 Today was a very exciting day! It started with my concentration exit interview which officially finished my academic concentration studies. This was a huge accomplishment for me because I have been working on this project for such a long time and finally completed it. I spent a lot of the afternoon working on my trifold for Express Fest. I printed out all of my pictures and quotes, and began putting it all together on the big poster board. I was so close to finishing, but unfortunately I ran out of tape and couldn’t complete it. I will finish it in the morning and I am extremely excited to do so since I think it looks great so far.

  Colin Shaver Weekly Reflection Total Week #2 Hours= 50 Hours Week #2 of Academic Concentration/Senior Project Work!   This week was not as much of a learning week as it was a presenting my learning week. Although, I did gain some new knowledge around the art of public demonstration. I spent the first part of the week presenting my research, process, and project to the Proctor community through a class presentation to Culture and Conflict, as well as an open Chapel Night talk along side Jess Stanton. I really enjoyed this weeks events compared to last week because I was more involved with campus. Towards the end of the week, my focus shifted for reflection and conclusion as I began working on my narrative reflection and my trifold for Express Fest. I liked what I did this week because after being cooped up for so long in the library last week, I was finally able to present my findings and interact with people who were willing to learn. Everything this week happened just as ...

  Day #11 Friday - May 20th Hours Logged- 2 hours Project Total- 49 Hours Time- 10:30pm Today I began to prepare my materials for my Express Fest trifold. This is a piece of my process that I have been looking forward to for most of the two week period because I can be creative with it and work with my hands. My plan is to reuse the poster that I used in the fall and add new pictures and information to it. My work today was picking out photos to use and also writing out little pieces of information that I can print out and put on the board. I have 6 hours of project time remaining and a few more days to complete my work, so I plan to finish my project on Monday- which is when my exit interview is. This will leave Tuesday for community service time whatever that may look like. With only a few more blog entries left I am starting to get excited for graduation!!

  Day #10 Thursday - May 19th Hours Logged- 2 hours Project Total- 47 Hours Time- 11:00pm There were not a whole lot of things planned for today, it mostly consisted of meetings with people. I met with Heidi in the early afternoon, to check in on things. We spoke about my project timeline and possible activities that I could do once I finished my project. Then after classes I met with Erik for a while to complete my narrative reflection. We went over the reflection questions then recorded Erik asking me the questions, as I answered them. I chose this reflection method because there has been so much writing in my project that I wanted to change it up. It ended up being an 11 minute video that I will post to my folder on google drive to be reviewed alongside all my other project materials. 

  Day #9 Wednesday - May 18th Hours Logged- 4 hours Project Total- 45 Hours Time- 9:46pm Today was my final public demonstration date. I got to the library at around 8:50 and got ready for my presentation by going over the slides a few more times. I also went over a few bibliography edits with Heidi. I presented my project to Culture and Conflict, and I think it went well. I was much more comfortable in the classroom setting when presenting and the class had lots of good questions after I finished the slides. I also spent a little bit of time meeting with my advisor/mentor Erik to go over my narrative reflection and a few more concentration related things. Since I was a little worried about finishing my project time requirement, I spoke to Kelly about things that I could do to fill time, and with her permission I logged 3 hours of senior project time commentating the varsity baseball game. It was good weather and a good game, so I’m very glad that I got to do it. 

  Day #8 Monday- May 17th Hours Logged- 5 hours Project Total- 41 Hours Time- 9:30pm Today I spent a lot of time in the library reflecting on last night's presentation and fixing some problems I had in my presentation. I also figured out the procedure for creating my narrative reflection. I opted to create a video recording of myself answering the reflection questions because I already spent so much of this project time writing one paper. I spent the afternoon after lunch practicing my presentation some more so I can have it down perfectly for tomorrow’s presentation. Finally, during dinner Kristen Farrell asked my dinner table if anyone would be available to help her and her advisory with dish duty. I said yes because it seemed like a good opportunity to observe food waste at Proctor, and to help out some friends. I worked in the dish room for about an hour and saw a lot of wasted food. Most of it was unnecessary, with people overloading their plates and not finishing their food...

  Day #7 Monday- May 16th Hours Logged- 6.5 hours Project Total- 36 Hours Time- 9:51pm Today I put in a lot of work time doing a lot of different activities. The day started with completing my entire presentation so I could present it in the evening at the Chapel Talk. Once I completed the presentation around noon I headed over to the Chapel to learn how to set up the projector and apple tv so I wouldn’t need help. I then spent some time running through practice presentations with Jess who was also presenting her work at the Chapel Talk. I spent a lot of the afternoon rehearsing my presentation in my dorm room before heading to the chapel at around 6pm to set up, practice, and present. A Lot of people came to watch and I think I did a good job of confidently presenting my work without reading a script or getting nervous. I also answered all of the questions after the presentation. Tomorrow, I will start on my narrative reflection paper! That was the first big challenge of my proj...

  Colin Shaver Weekly Reflection Total Week #1 Hours= 29.5 Hours Week #1 of Academic Concentration/Senior Project Work! This week I learned more about the writing process than anything else. In all my years at Proctor I don’t think that I have ever spent this much time on the individual steps of the writing process as I am usually one to write a paper the night before it is due. I started with a long and tedious brainstorming phase which included the creation of a very detailed outline. Once I started writing, I dialed in and completed 3 days of work in only 2 days (wow). I also learned to reach out to more people for feedback, in this I got feedback from Kristen Nesbitt, Erik Cole-Johnson, and Sarah Morgart. When it comes to the enjoyability of my project, it has not been great. I spent my first week out of school writing a paper in the library, while some of my classmates are traveling the world and doing lots of super exciting things. However, next week will be more exciting b...

  Day #6 Saturday- May 14th Hours Logged- 2 Hours Project Total- 29.5 Hours Time- 12:02pm It was a short day today, I worked some more on my presentation and got a few steps closer to finishing it. I may end up working on it tomorrow during study hall so I can spend Monday’s time practicing my presentation. I would have liked to get more work done today, but with there being a track meet today I did not have much work time. I feel good about where I am in my project because I have met my time requirement for the week. One thing I noticed when filling out my timesheet is that there has been a steady decline in the hours I have worked each day. I think that may be because I tired myself out in the first half of the week. That is one more thing I can work on going fo

  Day #5 Friday- May 13th Hours Logged- 3 hours Project total- 27.5 Time- 10:45 Today I accomplished my goal of spending more time working outside. I worked outside under the big tree between slocomb and the wood/metal working shop. I was only there for about 45 minutes due to the heat and bugs, but that short period of time was still enjoyable. I finished up my presentation plan and started accumulating pictures and screenshots from articles to add some intriguing detail to the project. I also worked on putting together the first few slides. For this presentation my goal is to not rely on a script because at this point in my project I believe I am knowledgeable enough on the issue that I should be able to speak from the brain with a few talking points for each slide. This means that my visual presentation will have little to no words written by me. I think this goal will help me grow a little bit as a public speaker and help me connect with my audience instead of looking down at...

  Day #4 Thursday-May 12th Hours logged- 5 Hours Project total- 24.5 hours Time- 11:43 Today I spent some of the morning listening to more food insecurity podcasts too. I also worked on planning out my visual presentation. Lastly, I put the final touches on my paper. It was generally really productive because I finished the first important piece of my project and started the first steps in the second big part of the project. I also spent some of my study hall peer editing final papers with Sarah so we could both get more eyes on our papers. While I got good work done, I still took some time to relax because I was getting concerned about overworking myself so early on in the project. Tomorrow I will begin working on my presentation and I believe that it will be done over the weekend and will be ready by Monday. Over the next few days of work my goal is to spend more of it outside to avoid getting bored. 

  Day #3 Wednesday-May 11th Hours Logged- 6 hours  Project total- 19.5 hours Time- 9:45 Today I worked on my paper and my annotated bibliography. This morning I was worried about filling my 55 hour time requirement for my full project so I spent some time considering ways I could add some more depth to my work period. I ended up finding a couple of podcasts about food insecurity in modern America and listened to them. I also finished section 3, 4, and 5 of my paper and completed citing all of my sources in noodletools and annotating them. This puts me a little ahead of schedule for the week which is a good thing. I met with Kristen Nesbitt in the evening to go over my paper which helped me greatly. With the help of Kristen and Erik I had a very full study hall of google docs comments on my paper. I think my paper is about 99% completed, so tomorrow my focus will shift towards my presentation for the upcoming chapel night.

  Day #2 Tuesday-May 10th Hours Logged= 6.5 hours Project Total= 13.5 hours Time- 9:47pm Today I was very productive and completed a lot of important tasks. I met with my mentor Erik Cole-Johnson in the morning and showed him my plans for the week, then returned to the library to work on the first two sections of my paper. This included listening to two interviews I conducted over the summer with two Loaves and Fishes employees. I used many quotes from those interviews even though it took a lot of time to listen to them both. I completed the first few pages and lots of annotations for my bibliography in the early afternoon before heading to practice. I spent all of study hall editing my paper with suggestions left via google docs from Erik. Tomorrow, I will work on the next few sections of my paper and meet with Kristen Nesbitt once again for another feedback session. 

  Day #1 Monday-May 9th Hours Logged= 7 Hours Project Total= 7 Hours  Time- 9:53pm Today was a planning based day to say the least. I spent most of my day in the library working on perfecting my schedule, updating my final paper outline with new research, and preparing for the upcoming work weeks. My first few days will be spent working on my paper and seeking feedback from my mentor and committee members. Towards the end of the week my focus will shift to working on my visual presentation for my chapel night next Monday. I also scheduled my public demonstrations with Mel for next Wednesday. This evening I met with Kristin Nesbitt to discuss the planning for my paper. We worked on refining my paper and I spent all of study hall implementing her suggestions into my outline. I accomplished a good amount of work today and I believe I set myself up for success for the upcoming 2 weeks.