Senior thesis reflection

It's almost at the end of the road with the MUSE program for us senior students. It's almost at the end of the chapter for us and beginning of a new chapter for all of us. I would like to acknowledge my supporters (MUSE faculty and staffs, my family and friends) who believed in me and encouraged me to pursue my goals. I truly am thankful.

My experience with senior thesis was pretty difficult than I anticipated. I started off with Deaf Studies collection with Laurent Clerc, a Deaf and Mute educator from France, and ended up with a thesis focusing on Online Exhibition and a case study at American School for the Deaf.  The transition wasn't easy and I consider this challenge as an learning experience to help me overcome any obstacles later in life.

I'm currently working on revising my thesis paper before submitting for final review and advisor signatures. Recently,  my 1:3 (one to three) meeting with Dr. Julie Decker, Dr. Mary Beth Kitzel and a sign language interpreter, we had a healthy discussion about certain areas with my paper which needed some revisions, filled up and reviewed my poster before finalizing it.

Reframing Thesis Paper, Deaf Collection and American School for the Deaf

Past few weeks flew by and my thesis paper constantly shifting its focus. I cannot believe the frustration I have with this paper. My goal is to organize a timeline to help me focus more on the thesis and invest more time in researching, organizing and re-formatting the topic.

Since the intercession, the topic paper went from Digital Archive and Curriculum Developing to  Deaf Collections’ Digital Archive and American School for the Deaf (ASD). ASD will be having their bicentennial (200th) celebration in the upcoming April 2017 and their goal is to establish a collaborated digital archive project. My goal with this project is to become involved with the project and do some digitizing, cataloging and to work remotely.

My thesis paper often went out of focus and that encouraged me to visit my advisors and asked for their feedbacks. After few days, with advisors feedbacks and several edits, i still couldn’t change the formats. I revisited and emailed them my several copies of  the first draft paper. Their feedbacks came out and it was still more than i assumed. Hopefully with 2nd paper, the vision might clear up better with developing details, restructuring clearer objectives.

Secondly, the research on the topic, Deaf Collections’ Digital Archive and American School for the Deaf, seem to be more clear point to start but elaborating more on the historical aspects, metadata, reading / research sources will be challenging for me to work with. Other than researching and reading, I'm maintaining contact with my connections, some of the coordinators at ASD, to plan my trip for a upcoming workshop related to ASD's collaborated project.