I was expecting a small bit of death when I signed up for this. Despite the course description, I was largely unsure of what to expect in this course. I was pleasantly surprised that I really enjoyed and understood the content and coursework at the beginning. I was expecting it to be very focused on the publishing field. It was indeed focused on the publishing field, but I was taken aback at how unprepared I felt for this course having not taken Intro to Modern Publishing. I was confident that I could pull through and close the gap in my knowledge of the field and practices, but some of the results were not ideal and I was ultimately left feeling like I don’t belong in the field of publishing or digital publishing, which is very disheartening because the publishing field is something I was recently considering investigating/going into after graduation next year.
My biggest personal takeaway is some difficult personal growth recognizing that not everything is going to be easy and not every aspect of the English/reading/writing/publishing world is for me. It was hard to take, but sometimes you need a small dose of failure in life to make you more thankful for what you love and what you’re good at, to make you further appreciate what emerges from the field and the people who are wonderful at it. If everyone was horrible at publishing, there would be fewer books and other things to read in the world, and that would be a sad time. Hell, I wouldn’t be published. So something I would change is adding a further pep talk that this indeed can be a difficult course and even though this field or aspect of the field isn’t for everyone, that’s okay, and that there is still something for everyone out there that they can succeed at.
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