As the semester comes to a close, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to reflect on the experiences I’ve had with CUPID. In previous semesters, I dedicated my time to organizations and roles that did not further my professional development. I was not connected to the work I was doing and almost let possible prospects at advancing my academic studies fall by the wayside.
I am happy to say the Center for Undergraduate Publishing and Information Design was not one of those occurrences. My immediate engagement with the tasks at hand and my happiness while accomplishing those tasks confirmed my belief that passion is a driving force behind success. Often times, I dismissed this notion thinking that other things like mere knowledge on the subject matter or perseverance with its undertakings would lead to enrichment and success. Don’t get me wrong, hard work and a strong dedication to the material is extremely significant, but CUPID has helped me realize that I need passion to drive my professional growth.
I became increasingly aware of this while working on The Back Cover, Elon University’s English department newsletter. From taking CUPID studio in the spring last year, I somewhat knew the gist of the newsletter- it covered prominent topics in the English department, some cool news, and featured the work of professors and students in the discipline. I knew all those things and more were covered in The Back Cover; however, until I had the chance to actually engage in the happenings of the English department, I was unaware of how much I actually connected with my major at Elon.
The Back Cover was definitely a challenge for me as I had many initial hurdles to tackle- the first of which was the not knowing the program software for the document. We create The Back Cover in InDesign, and when I first started as a CUPID Associate my knowledge and experience with InDesign was limited (to say the very least). Since then, I have subsequently gained more knowledge on the program through the PWR class, Writing Technologies, and pure trial and error while working on The Back Cover.
After I overcame this initial challenge, it became increasingly evident to me that the textual and visual elements of design must work in harmony to produce a rhetorically-savvy document. You can’t just make something look pretty or rely on pure words to get by. Nope, the combination of textual and visual rhetoric is vital to an effective deliverable. Therefore, The Back Cover reinforced the importance of the rhetorical strategies and techniques we have been learning and implementing for so long.
And before coming to a complete close on this reflection, I want to take the time to thank Emily, Maggie, and Dr. Pope-Ruark on a great semester. I attribute my strong connections with CUPID to this group and how well we were able to work together. Working on projects was an enjoyable experience, and I had so much fun while with Emily and Maggie while in the CUPID studio. Thanks for a great semester, and I hope to continue my professional growth in CUPID studio in the future.
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