My experience was this project was wholly unique from work or projects I have worked on in the past. Never have I worked with teammates to collectively create a product that would be used publicly. Some skills and talent that were valuable in working with our community partner in making social change was communication, work ethic, teamwork, and competency. These skills and talents allowed my team and I to create a product we and our community partner would be proud of and yet can still be improved upon. The limitations I knew I would have going into this, being lack of skillful communication and teamwork were improved upon as well as supported by my teammates. Where I could not communicate with our community partner effectively, another teammate took up the role to do so. I had not worked with a team before on a project such as this; however, over the course of the project, I have learned to better work as a team and communicate effectively between each other. We worked as a team and communicated as a team, but when it came to actually doing things that would contribute to the project, there were some times I had to take initiative to ensure the others would begin their work as well.

The Social need of this Odyssey Project is approached well by our community partner, for there is no better way to promote an event than creating a website for it. It is also effective in that it creates an event that will be socially available to any and all people related to Hendrix to attend. This Solar Eclipse Celebrations seeks to bring the whole community of Hendrix and Conway together in celebration of an astronomical phenomenon.

I find that none of my fundamental values, social ideals, or significant beliefs have been challenged from this experience. I am a pretty open person when it comes to such values, beliefs or ideals, and this experience simply did nothing to affect that. Perhaps the idea that I working in groups is a hassle has been challenged, since my group has worked pretty efficiently and well together. I could interpret it as being the fact that a group all highly interested in this field of work and knowledge working together we would create a well working product. Of course, the academic coursework of working towards a Computer Science degree has impacted my understanding of the project. To understand this project and how to do it, one has to know a lot about how websites and databases work; which, Database and Web Systems has done to complete success. I would not say I could challenge any of the ideas from that class after completing this project. The class and project go hand-in-hand to fulfill the needs of the project.

If I were to say anything about how this experience reshaped my views on public issues that could call me to action, it would most likely be ones of social issues regarding the insecurity of databases or the failure of insecure websites leaking data of users or clients. Many a time I have seen websites, databases, and apps fail to be secure and causing trouble for hundreds of thousands of users. With more knowledge and experience, one day I should be able to be on the forefront to resolve these major problems. Not to mention, the internet and technology continuing to be a larger and larger part of our lives, it is indicative that I put myself ahead of the curve to the larger public in knowledge of new technology to prevent its misuse.

What I have done in this experience has changed me for the better, allowing me to be a better team player on group work. To say my thoughts on the project, I feel that its creation will bring improvements to social and communal involvement of the Hendrix space. While small in the greater picture of the world, it has been a step in the right direction, for me and for the world.