The second failure that I want to address is was not able to collect the data that I would have liked to get. In hindsight, by setting such high expectations for myself for a 10-week project I was setting myself up for failure. My vision included heat maps, color coated by mode of transportation (foot, bike, car), major (business, journalism, English, etc.), and living arrangements. However, that would have been a project with a much longer time period than the one I had. Although the lesson I take away from this failure is not “set lower expectations,” I still learned something. Failing at this aspect of my project taught me to time manage better. Although my complete vision would have been difficult to complete on time, I think that I could have gotten more research if I started working on my project sooner than I did. Relating to the BBC article “Viewpoint: How Creativity is Helped by Failure”, I believe that failure is necessary to create a great final product. The revision stage of any project is usually overlooked, mainly because of how groundbreaking or cool the final version is. However, the final version would never have came to be without the hours turned to days turned to weeks and even years of reworking. An example that the article talks about which I liked is of Isaac Newton. Isaac Newton is credited with creating the theory of gravity, and rightfully so. As the story goes, Newton was sitting in his garden one day when an apple hit him on the head.
The story skips many steps and claims at that moment he discovered and invented the theory of gravity. However, there was probably a lot of time in between that apple hitting Newton’s head and the finalization of the theory that the story forgets to mention. That thought process between the initial inspiration and the final product was very important in contributing to the theory of gravity as we know it today, and that is the same case for many revision processes. This story highlighted for me the importance of revision, and a positive attitude when confronted with “failure”.