CST 462S - Service Learning Journal Reflection

Overall, my service learning experience with Eat for the Earth was interesting but also a bit challenging. The goal of our project was to figure out a way to track participants who went through the program multiple times and show how their data changed over time in some kind of visual format. Even though we didn’t fully finish the project, we were able to get a good start by planning out the structure and beginning the script.

One thing that went well was that we understood the problem pretty clearly and had a solid idea of what we wanted to build. We worked well together and made progress on setting things up, even if we didn’t get to the final result.

If I could improve something, I would definitely try to deal with technical issues earlier. We had trouble getting the data to load properly, which slowed us down a lot. Looking back, we probably should have asked for help sooner or tried different approaches instead of spending so much time stuck.

The most impactful part of this experience was realizing how important data organization is, especially for nonprofits. It made me see how useful it would be for them to actually visualize changes over time and use that information to improve their programs.

One of the biggest challenges was dealing with the data itself and not having everything work the way we expected. It was frustrating at times, but it also helped me learn how to be more patient and think through problems.

My advice for future service learning students would be to start early and stay in communication with both your partner and the organization. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for help when something isn’t working. Projects like this don’t always go as planned, so being flexible is really important. Even if you don’t finish everything, the progress you make still matters.

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