My users class on Friday

So Friday I had the all day session of Use and Users of Information. All in all, I have to say this is a very good class and very worthwhile. I also have to say that it’s killing me slowly. Way more reading and much harder assignments than Electronic Publishing or anything else I’ve taken. I’d say it was just me, but everyone else on Friday was whining softly about the workload. But anyway…

I have been putting a lot into this class – partly because the assignments are all weighted heavily in the grade and partly because the class material is very esoteric, dense stuff. I stress a lot about whether or not I’m actually grasping all the “frameworks” and “models” and “theories” presented. My instructor is sympathetic, but the assignments are still pretty demanding.

So, on Friday, we were to turn in an 800 word paper on what we were doing our sample user study/literature review on. This was a bit stressful since this came only a week after we turned in a 1600 word literature review and, of course, we were all traveling to C-U for class. We also had to do a presentation on our project for class. I turned that 800 word thing in on Wednesday night; I didn’t want to mess with it on Thursday night. I had no idea what kind of internet access I would have. I wanted time to work on my presentation after all.

Imagine my surprise when I showed up in class and most people had not turned in this paper. Some hadn’t even started it. Some weren’t even sure if they were doing a user study or lit review. One person, for her presentation, literally just thought aloud as she wondered about how to learn about creative writers. I think possibly only three of us had prepared.

So I left feeling partly frustrated and partly encouraged. Frustrated because I feel like I’ve burned all this energy and I still don’t have anything to show for it (none of our papers have been returned yet) and encouraged because I feel like I have my act together at least. Or maybe I don’t. Ugh – this class is hard.

I have cataloguing tomorrow. I feel a bit better about this class, so we’ll see how tomorrow goes.