Struggles

I encountered many difficulties and personal struggles during the course of the project. It is not an easy thing to complete an MFA degree and an ambitious thesis project while working full time and trying to raise a family. Personal events can have as much impact on a work as anything else. I found many difficulties in trying to find balance between my many priorities.

Even with a very supportive spouse and an accommodating employer, it is not an easy task to take on this kind of work. One difficulty that I ran into as a part time student was the simple fact that I had much more time to think about my project

than I actually had to work on it. This was a very difficult struggle. As a professional web designer, I have not worked on a project yet where the design and development for a specific project would span more than six months. After presenting my midpoint review, I would spend nearly two years part-time working through the details of the project.

It was very difficult to not get distracted over time. Design decisions that I made a year ago began to look tired to me, and I would often rework elements. This seemed good for the improvements I made, but it complicated the task of completing the project. Finding the ability to ignore time, and committing to things even when they were not quite perfect, became critical factors for success.