Its done ! My group, the Faulkner County Juvenile Court with Hayden Moussa, Johannes Mayhofer and Justin Grubbs did our Final presentation today and presented our demo for our website. Compared to the previous bare-bones Razor pages look I greatly prefer what it has become and I’m very proud of the work each of us did throughout this project. With the combined effort of each of myself and each of my teammates this project was exciting, hard, and a relief to finally call finished. While there is still some work to be done in regard to deploying the website to Azure I think for the most part we each completed various aspects of the exact idea our client set out for us, and truthfully (not to brag) I think we did it well. I proud of all of us and this project would not have turned out the way it did without the help and dedication of my teammates.

That being said there are a few things I’d like to reflect on here in this blogpost.

I’ve come to realize that in regard to carrying out the social change that I am doing with my community partner it was important to have good communication, ask clear and concise questions, and most importantly to not overpromise. Over this experience I’ve come to realize that I am much better at communication that I previously believed, but feel that I am lacking in my ability to ask specifically clear and concise questions. However I feel that I have learned a lot from watching and working alongside my teammates over the course of this project. Before every meeting with our community partner we would have a meeting ourselves and review and go over questions we planned to ask, which greatly helped me learn what I should be looking for and how to relate the answers we recieve from those into a project. I think that I am still not nearly as proficient as I would like to be in this regard but know now weaknesses that I have and can plan on how to approach situations in the future based off of what I know now.

I think that the social need that my group worked to fulfill was one we all felt and felt should be helped. For a quick explanation the Faulkner County Juvenile Court typically puts out a report over fiscal year that states all of the data in a readable format for civilians of Faulkner County to be able to read and see what is happening in their community, which me and my teammates all believe to be a righteous cause and were very happy to work towards it. I feel that this approach from our community partner is very impactful and as a member of Faulkner County myself I am glad to know what is happening in the juvenile court system and honored to work for the cause. I believe that my community partners approach is good as it highlights an importance of community service back into the court system that for the most part in America is mostly lost, I think that this cause specifically addresses and helps nullify an issue in the community by building back transparency and trust with the court system.

I think that my fundamental values and social ideals have been challenged over the course of this project but not altered. In many ways seeing the cause brought from the Juvenile Court Project was one I never expected to be placed in my hands and one I never thought I’d see from my own community. In many ways it restored some faith in the transparency of the court and policing systems in my own county and helped me realize much of the good many people in it are trying to create that often gets overlooked. I found that my academic coursework at Hendrix has often challenged my ideals in much the same way, often making me think and reconsider my position and ideals when I least expect it. That being said never quite on the level or the scale as this project. Off the top of my head I can’t recall anything that I would directly challenge now that I’ve had this experience, but it has changed the way I percieve my community and many aspects of my beliefs.

This experience over the course of the project as drilled two main things into me: 1 - That you never know what can go wrong until it does, you just need to prepare yourself as best you can. 2 - Always do your best to persevere and work even harder under pressure. During this project I found that I really struggled to stay afloat at times, consistently getting sick and knocked down any time I tried to get back up. This semester was nothing but rough overall, and I learned a lot about pushing through. That being said it truly helped me learn to prepare myself and get work done earlier and plan to do so to avoid as much strife as I can in the future. I think that in many regards however I learned a lot more about myself, I pushed myself harder than I think I have a in a very long time and learned I could do a lot when I truly set my mind to it, persevering even when I didn’t think I could but doing so to ensure that I completed my end. Im proud of the work I did and I look forward to continuing to improve myself and learn from this experience and future ones the same.

Overall, this course and this project was a truly amazing experience. While there were some tough aspects, I enjoyed my time and feel that I learned a lot from my teammates, my community partner, and my coursework. That being said, I feel that I especially learned a lot out about work ethic, teamwork and communication though. I look forward to the future with my newfound knowledge and understanding of my strengths and weaknesses as I continue toward the work force and employ my understanding and knowledge to a work environment.