Working From Home

Aside from the time I spent in class getting feedback for the project, Amazing Adventure was made entirely at my own personal work station at home. This was largely done for personal convenience, as spending roughly an hour one direction to go to the school labs was one hour lost working on the project. However, I also used my personal work station to make my computer better than those at school, with multiple monitors, a tablet, a custom mouse and gamepad, and customized controls for my work program, Maya. Plus, I could work my own hours (usually evening-night time) and I didn't have to compete for a computer in the labs. Honestly, the customization I received by working at home made not only the quality of my work better, but vastly improved my speed as well. Working at home on this project, for me, worked out extremely well, and I recommend others do it too.

My workstation:

However, one of the biggest lessons I have learned from my thesis project is that I don't want to work from home in my career. There are a lot of distractions at home, and no one to tell you to get back to work, because your roommates are usually half of the distraction in the first place. A lot of hours, and sometimes entire days, can be lost because of these distractions. It can get really hard to get out of bed some mornings because you know that work it right there and can be done later. But these are all things that optimism and the drive to work can push through, and I'm still working on not distracting myself throughout the day. However, what I desire from working outside the home is for a clear separation between work and home. Working all day and then trying to flip the switch to relaxing at home is much easier said than done, and I find myself mentally lingering on my work on a regular basis. Thus, the times I'm not working are just as tiring as the times I AM working, because I am stressed about my work as it flies through my head. Being able to put some physical separation between myself and work as I travel each day would be a much needed experience in my career.

The eventual reality of home:

Once I'm done with the project, I think I'll keep the workstation, but purely for personal work that I can do on my own time.