The End of Something more then a Class

The Civic Media class was more then a class it was a life lesson and eye opening experience on humanity. We touched on many subjects in class and how social media has changed the way we communicate and engage social in movements. One thing that I found amazing in this class is how art is used for activism. Graffiti, Murals, Sculptures, and hanging installations are everywhere and at a glance it may not seem like much, but the picture is only the beginning. Much like people what you see is one thing, but the meaning behind the art and the way the person actually feels is something beautiful. I think this is why I focused my final project on Veterans and PTSD.

On the outside I see someone who is invincible and have nothing but gratitude for them. That is only the outside though on the inside this person is in pain and suffering. When talking about mental illness in class it struck me how much we don’t know about these issues. Most of the time we either ignore what is happening or medicate people to the point where they are zombies.

The start of my project was going great when deciding a topic I thought what a good topic Veterans and PTSD something that is a concern to me and I will enjoy getting to learn more about this topic. I was on a role starting this topic gathering information like a sponge soaking it all up. One thing that was a minor road block was Adobe premier pro. I didn’t have much practice with this application besides what we did in class, but I really wanted to make a video for my topic. So with the help of google and YouTube I was able to master some basics to creating my masterpiece. After a lot of trial and error I was able to create what I call a pretty good video production on veterans and PTSD.

One thing that really stuck out out me when researching this is how social media plays a role. I briefly talk about the 22 push up challenge that took social media by storm to raise awareness that 22 veterans commit suicide a day due to PTSD. Research shows that after this challenge not only did it raise a lot of money but helped bring the suicide rate down from 22 veterans a day to 20.