Report from the Virtual Field: Njuhi Karianjahi On Summer Multimedia Development Institute

Njuhi Karianjahi '09

Josephine Njuhi Karianjahi '09, a Growth and Structure of Cities major with an economics minor from Nairobi, Kenya, participated in Bryn Mawr's 2006 Summer Multimedia Development Institute. The program offers six to eight students stipends and training in multimedia design; the students then work on projects proposed by members of the Bryn Mawr faculty and staff. Karianjahi worked on three projects, collaborating with other students on two video projects and working solo on a Web design project. Her account of the summer follows.

In the spring of 2006 I learned about the Summer Multimedia Development Institute through a friend who had participated in it. The Institute has trained nearly 30 students in multimedia design over the last four years. After I attended an informational tea, it appealed to me even more, and I applied for the internship amidst the hectic pre-exam period. This was a competitive process through which I and five other Bryn Mawr undergrads, namely Lindsay Gold '07, Sarah Martin '07, Lauren Maksym '08, Jiajia Fei '08 and Asia Hoe '09, were selected from among our peers to receive a $3,200 stipend each and a ten-week internship.  

Two weeks into the summer, I returned to Bryn Mawr campus looking forward to sharpening my multimedia skills and meeting new people. What I discovered were fun, Bryn Mawr-campus-in-the-summer, busy days; summer biweekly barbeques; a wealth of ideas and much more. Where I previously thought being indoors working nine-to-five would be long and dreary, the last summer's days were an amazing experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself drawn to a notebook computer and design ideas.

I began the first week of the internship with rusty high-school computer skills and started to update myself on everything from file management to cascading style sheets, which are widely used in Web design. It was going to be a summer of learning for me.

We, the students, met one another and our hosts for the summer, Senior Instructional Technologist Laura Blankenship, Web Applications Programmer Mike Zarro, Social Sciences Node Coordinator David Consiglio, Director of Computing Services Janet Scanell and Language Learning Center Director Christine Boyland. The 2006 Summer Multimedia Development Institute began with a weeklong course in basic HTML programming language, design concepts, instructional design, usability and accessibility and project management. At the end of that first week, we also met our project sponsors, who were drawn from a variety of campus departments from Facilities Services to Wyndham Alumnae House, which operates a bed-and-breakfast, catering service and restaurant.  

The interns divided the projects among us, some to group work and others for individual work. My projects included designing a Web site for the President's Diversity Council on my own and with other students, videos about the renovation of Dalton Hall (with Sarah Martin) and the Career Development Office (with Lauren Maksym). Our tasks included weekly meetings with our sponsors, Web design using Macromedia Dreamweaver™, video capture and editing using iMovie and Final Cut Pro, and completing the projects during the assigned period of 10 weeks. For the photographer in me, it was a thrill to learn how to manipulate images using Adobe Photoshop and Flash and how to use a 3-D camera.  

I met with the President's Diversity Council Web team to conceptualize and design a general information Web site for the Council. Jointly with other students, I created a 15-minute promotional video on Dalton Hall, which brought together the College Facilities department, lead architects, faculty, staff and students to talk about Dalton past and present. This project involved site visits to the architects, research in the College Archives and recording of several volumes of video footage. The Career Development Office required a short three-minute video to introduce students to its services. This project involved interviewing students on camera and editing this footage to create relevant video clips.  

For the summer, we were assigned room 102A of Guild Computing Center as our office. Any one of us can tell you that we had a great time up there. It was a cool respite from those muggy days and a melting pot for ideas. The Institute challenged us to stretch our minds and sharpen our problem-solving skills. Often, the answer to a problem that we encountered was to try new things. For someone who is interested combining an interest in computers with projects related to her academic major and extracurricular activities, this internship was ideal.  

A typical day would begin at 9 a.m. and, if I had an early morning meeting, I would go to my project sponsor's office or meet my sponsor the lounge area in Guild Hall. After the meeting would be office work in 102a or downstairs in the Multimedia Lab. I was amazed at how much research one can do on Web-related things on the Internet. One day I would be hunting for different media plug-ins and the next I would be formatting my pages using standardized w3c (Web-wide) instructions. At first, this all seemed like Greek to me (and I am not a student of classical languages), but our hosts in the Education Technology Center were an invaluable resource in navigating our projects and research.  

We did not just spend our days coding and editing, but also spent some time enjoying the weather, during a trip to Six Flags Adventure Park , and weekly group lunches outdoors. What I learned about negotiating with the project sponsors, time management and collaborative effort was probably as least as valuable as the technical skills I gained. Overall, it was a great experience, and one that I will remember for a long time to come.

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