Jack Olson
Senior Project
Reflection
3-29-2019
When we were asked to write a simple reflection about our senior projects, I was thinking
it was going to be an easy task that I would just get done and turn in. After I’ve thought about it
however, to call a paper with such magnitude a ‘reflection’ is just too mundane. Over the past
year or so, I have grown at a rate that I thought I would never experience. When broken down,
the senior experience is at best a series of weekly assignments that wouldn’t impress the average
junior high student or even a chimpanzee. That was my attitude throughout the early months of
the project anyway. However, the smaller aspects of the process began to come together like one
of those large family puzzles that takes so long that 90% of pieces end up hanging with the dust
bunnies underneath the table, and those aspects is what I’d like to reflect upon.
The very first thing we were assigned to do for our senior projects was create a Twitter
account. I had never used a form of social media before, so my first challenge came right away.
After I created the account, I processed and posted my first Tweet. The first half of my tweets
came during the summer and they came very easy to me. Once the school year started again, my
project priorities changed but my tweets stayed consistent and I was able to complete on time
with fairly no last minute rushing.
The next step we attempted was the creation of our senior project portfolio websites
provided by Weebly. It was daunting to say the least. The more I worked with it, the more
talented I became at using it though. I created multiple pages, used several tools, and inserted a
few documents. By the end of the first semester I had a website that had seen all my angers and
triumphs but accurately showed the gravity of my project thus far.
When the school year started, our first semester project as part of the senior experience
was the research paper. I chose my topic within the first month of school and got to work on the
history of military jeeps. In December, I had like 10 pages, which was still a ways away from
the goal so I had to focus all my efforts to my paper and by semester I had 16 pages and I handed
in a paper that I was surprisingly very proud of.
The second semester basically consisted of finishing my Jeep. I had accomplished a ton
over the summer but it was still far from completion. I really enjoy working on my Jeep, so it
wasn’t very hard to find the ambition to work on it. In January I was just starting body work so I
was stripping, and cleaning everything I could find. During this period I learned a large majority
of my new skills form my mentor Cody. I finished my Jeep in March but in my opinion, the best
builds are never completed.
The last major challenge in our senior projects was our exhibit boards and our
presentations. I had been imagining how I wanted my board to look for a long time. However, I
had a very hard time putting it into reality when I really needed to. My board came together very
well in the end with a lot of rhino liner and a fancy little picture cutter. Presenting came pretty
easy for me after I got past the introduction jitters. I almost had fun doing it. I leaned a lot of
public speaking tips from presiding to Mrs. Trower and the panel. In the end, that series of
seemingly uneventful weekly assignments turned into a years work of self development and a set
of skills that I will be able use for the rest of my life. (And hey, I got a Jeep out of it:)