A Mental Battle Before an Academic One

Phase 2 
Honestly... felts like an emotional roller coaster: panic, frustration, and a few small improvements. There was a moment where I do not know if my brain just completely shut down from all the stress I was putting on myself, but there were days when I had to do the labs and I would simply say:
“No, this is impossible.” But little by little, something started to change. I do not know if I suddenly became intelligent out of nowhere or if I just had way too much free time. Being completely honest with the people reading this post, the hardest part was not always the formulas. Most of the time, the hardest part was my own mentality. Every time I saw something difficult, my first reaction automatically was:
“I cannot do this.” And honestly… that mentality made everything feel a THOUSAND times harder. And it is funny because I normally like to pretend that I am the most independent person in the world and that I can accomplish everything I set my mind to. 

URL Components & Social Engineering
Learning about URL components and social engineering made me realize how easy it is to manipulate people on the internet. I have always been somewhat careful with strange links but mostly because my mom taught me to be cautious about those things. I think that if she had not taught me to pay attention to that, I probably could have fallen for those tricks too. It is honestly scary to think about how easy it is to make something fake look real online. 

A6 Spreadsheet Analysis with Trailer 
My experience with this assignment was actually enjoyable because I learned many little things and, honestly, I liked doing it. It was interesting to feel like I was completing a real assignment from a company, although I struggled a little trying to properly organize the data labels on my charts. I knew that many companies require Excel skills, but I never understood why they said you needed a certification. In my head I was basically thinking:
“Do they not know how to add two cells together?” But during A6 I realized that Excel is not just about adding little cells together. It is also about organization, logic, and paying attention to details, because one small mistake can completely change the meaning of the data. That assignment also taught me patience… which is funny because I do not think Excel is really about that haha. Chapter 5.2.6 Workbook Management Facts One topic from Chapter 5 that really caught my attention was Workbook Management Facts. Honestly, I never really thought too much about how I organized my files or spreadsheets. For me, as long as the file existed and did not magically disappear, everything was fine. But learning about workbook management made me realize how important digital organization really is. Simple things such as properly renaming worksheets, duplicating sheets, using different file formats, or even importing data can save a huge amount of time and prevent unnecessary mistakes. Excel is not only about formulas. It is also about structure and organization. A poorly organized workbook can quickly turn into a confusing disaster, especially when working with large amounts of information. I also found it interesting to learn about different file formats, especially PDF and CSV. Before this class, I would simply ignore those options. Now I understand that every format has a different purpose depending on how you want to share or work with information. Even learning how to import data from websites or databases made me realize that Excel is much more powerful than I originally thought. Before, I saw Excel as “that complicated application full of little squares.” Now I understand why so many companies and professionals depend on it every day. 

Outside of IS101 
And even though all of this started as simple Excel assignments, I feel like I ended up learning things that I can truly apply outside the classroom. I know these skills will help me a lot in the future, especially in the business field, which is the area where I want to professionally develop myself. I hope to soon apply everything I learned in a real job and of course give the credit to Professor Wu for teaching us all of these skills.

Looking Toward Phase 3
I think my biggest challenge will be balancing discipline with confidence. Sometimes I underestimate myself before I even try. Other times I panic because I want everything to be perfect immediately. But this semester is teaching me something important:
growth does not happen when everything feels easy. It happens during those frustrating moments when you want to quit, but you continue anyway. And honestly… that is probably the real reason why surviving Excel feels like such an accomplishment.

+Plus
To finish this post, I wanted to show my first slideshow about my dog Uday, who is in Peru with my mom I know I probably sound very childish talking about my dog, but I truly love my two dogs and I am not embarrassed to say it ;)
Honestly, speaking English embarrasses me more haha.