Completed Arc Map Tutorial

Above: Exercises 1-5 of the Arc Maps tutorial.

Working hands-on, independently with the GIS software was the best way to tackle the challenge. I feel that after hearing so much about the power and potential of GIS to solve problems, there was no better way to witness this than by completing this basic tutorial. Upon reflection, I still feel that had it not been for the detailed, step by step instructions, I would have been very lost working alone, even during my second time of repeating the process. I think that this is due in part to my lack of solid computer skills and fundamental understanding about concepts such as folder hierarchies and saving my work. I have always thought of myself as a computer-literate person, but I now realize how much more I need to understand about harnessing the power of the computer in order to attack problems and manipulate data to produce logical results.

The struggles that I faced were not unlike the feeling I had when I was forced to teach myself basic knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite in the course of a week. I had to learn how to manipulate images in Photoshop, blend them with scanned sketches and organize them alongside original maps that I had created in Adobe Illustrator, into a tabletop book using InDesign. I had so many unanswered questions and I realized that if I could not figure out how to work independently, I would not succeed. This is where I gained a profound understanding, and eventually appreciation, for the concept of layers in a document. This was not unlike ArcGIS, although the data layers in GIS are more complex.

One fear that I have upon completing the tutorial comes from the realization that all of the data that I used was prefabricated and came from a reliable database. I didn’t need to find this information myself; I simply had to access it. But I can assume that this will rarely be the case in solving future problems and I feel that my understanding of how the computer finds the data, retrieves it and stores it still is somewhat unclear to me. I am becoming aware slowly of all of the resources at our disposal. But what good will these resources do me in the future, if I am not confident in how to access them?

I am amazed at the remote access technology that allowed me to complete my assignment from outside of the lab on a Mac platform. I was proud of myself for figuring out how to access the computer lab from off-campus, following the directions that were provided. I also felt a great sense of relief and satisfaction from completing the tutorial. It was an intense process to complete all five tasks, and I felt that there was so much that could go wrong at each step, especially working outside of the network on a non-PC computer. It was difficult, admittedly, to find the motivation to close my screen filled with my completed work and begin again from scratch, pushing myself not to refer back to my notes nearly as much the second time. I did feel increased confidence, but not much.

I feel that I need to still complete the tutorial several more times before I can really internalize the necessary procedures for working with data. I was so absorbed in managing details (rescaling the page, matching the color palate to that of the example) that I am worried that I did not really grasp the deeper significance of each task. In repeating these tasks, I know that I will eventually learn to break away from my myopic, detail-oriented mindset and understand the concepts behind each step. I know that when I reach this level of confidence with the software, I would actually be able to visualize what steps I would have to take in order to solve a problem, such as creating a table from two data sets in order to plot a new graph that would explain a new relationship. Until I reach that level of comfort with the software though, I know that I will be referring back to the directions from the PDF as my crutch to assist me when I become confused.

Overall, I believe that completing this tutorial helped me gain a deeper understanding of how ArcGIS can be used to solve complex problems. I had a vague understanding beforehand, but nothing makes more sense than actually attempting it individually, hands-on. Learning in this way is tough and frustrating, but as long as I keep retrying the tutorial, I believe that I will be less likely to forget how to use the software.