Looking Back at Bootcamp

After two days of intense immersion in the ways of InDesign and Photoshop, I feel like I have a much better understanding of the two programs even though I’ve used them before.

I feel a tad overwhelmed by information, which is to be expected. As this is the beginning of a new semester, Photoshop and InDesign are hardly the only things I’m learning right now. Still, I feel I’ll be able to retain most of what I learned this week and take it with me as we begin our actual assignments.

My InDesign experience, before this class, was limited mostly to editing documents that people had already made. At the athletics department, for instance, I often had to replace the logos of rival schools or edit statistics in InDesign documents that were later printed as programs or notecards.

Although this work gave me a solid introduction to InDesign, I would have been lost trying to create a document from scratch. I don’t feel quite so lost anymore.

Photoshop, on the other hand, is that one program I learn how to use every three years or so and then immediately forget for lack of practice. I hope that doesn’t happen again.

At the athletics department I sometimes had to use it to cut out athletes or edit graphics, but my Photoshop use was far lower than InDesign. So going over its features again was very helpful.

I’ve always been a little resentful about the way I’ve been taught these two programs. Just because, it seems to me, they’re pretty much the most important tools a PR practitioner can have, and their uses extend far beyond public relations. They’re basically the essential tools of the Millennial, a Microsoft Office for the digital age.

Yet my instruction has consistently treated these programs like an afterthought, as if they were of little importance. It was stunning to me to see how many people in our class had little or no experience with them.

So though these programs can be challenging, I’m honestly excited to be in a class where I really feel like I’m going to be able to practice with them. I know what I learn in PR Pubs will come in handy for years to come.