By Shalian Shaw
During semester 2 of the 2019 – 2020 school year, us Create Caribbean interns have been given our respective assignments to contribute towards the Carisealand project. This semester we were mainly tasked with placing coordinates into the ArcGIS software and ensuring that these points were placed in their correct locations. All of this is because after the information was moved from its previous platform, some of the information was messed up and got misplaced etc. The locations being put into ArcGIS were from our intern assignments last semester.
Navigating the ArcGIS software proved a tedious task for me personally as it was my first time using it. There were so many things I had to learn so that I did my work correctly and even after receiving a tutorial from one of my peers, I still had not fully grasped the concept. One specific lesson that I learned the hard way was that I had to click save after every point I put in so that a change was made. Nonetheless, I can now say that I am getting the hang of it. Another setback has been my time management. I have not contributed nearly as much as I would have liked to because of the demand of school as it is my last semester at the Dominica State College and the workload is heavier. I do plan though, to dedicate more time to the project as the semester winds down to a close. In that time, I wish to better learn the ArcGIS software, find more relevant information regarding the research topic and generally make meaningful contributions.
My research skills were also broadened after having to do more research to add sources to our Carisealand syllabus. I learned what things I could do to better find the information I need and make researching easier.
Despite the setbacks I am content with the fact that I have acquired new knowledge on ArcGIS and at the end of it all I can add it to the pool of technical skills earned while at Create Caribbean. These skills which I believe could be made the most of in the future.