Reflection on Year
Although I took this course to fulfill a general education credit and had no appreciation for the field prior to taking the course, my appreciation and understanding of its importance grew with each assignment. I learned various concepts during this course and I extended the reach of my skillset through the completion of each project. When asked the question, “What is Digital Humanities” I thought it was a collaborative field involving the use of technology in explaining social trends and patterns, and to some extent that was accurate, but I learned that the field really has no definitive meaning as it covers too much to fit in a definition. Each project covered a different way to visualize and experience trends, which led to different ways of understanding them and seeing new trends/patterns. My favorite thing about this class was that it was hands-on meaning that we learned by doing deviating from the usual lecture format. More than half of the semester was dedicated to completing three projects, which showed different aspects of digital humanities. These projects helped me understand how to approach certain forms of data and ways to analyze that data using particular forms of analysis.
The first project taught me the basics of python programming as well as understanding how descriptive statics can help explain trends. In this assignment, we captured and collected numeric and categorical data and analyzed it through the use of python scripts. I learned that numbers tell a lot when analyzed the right way.
The second project involved textual analysis in which two texts were to be compared to one another through the creation of word clouds. Books and other forms of texts are influenced by the period in which they were written and the culture in which the author lived. I did not understand how important the frequency of words in a text may tell about the authors purpose in writing the novel.
The third project, my favorite project, involved comparing and analyzing videos and finding out what it meant to be a hero. Like most Americans, I love to watch television, but I did not pay attention to the underlying themes and ideas presented through television. This project opened my mind up to the intentional and unintentional ideas presented through video clips and how culture affects what is delivered to media consumers.
Overall, I learned a lot from the class and I enjoyed the format in which the class was taught. I had a great Professor, Professor Hemphill that thought not through boring lectures, but through class discussions. The class illustrated how diverse and far-ranging the field of digital humanities is and how fun finding trends can be.
