I have always loved learning about new things and have tried to gain a widespread knowledge of a diverse set of topics. The saying that knowledge is power has always resonated with me and I believe that studying a wide array of subjects is a good way to attain this. This being said, the maps and geovisualization course really appealed to my interest in attaining more knowledge. We use maps on a weekly basis in today’s society as google maps and other mapping programs have allowed people to search for whatever institution or place in which they want to travel. I personally use google maps to travel to and from surrounding food places, banks, stores, or whatever else serves my needs. This is such a big part of my life that I found it very interesting that there is a course that teaches the art of map making. I have no prior knowledge of GIS or any other software that allows for mapping and have never even considered it to be a possibility for me to learn. This is precisely why I took this course. It will allow me to gain a further understanding of how mapping works and introduce me to software that I have never before used. I am a business major and while mapping has little to do with my finance and management concentrations as I currently understand it, I think I will discover that GIS will help me in the business world. After all, I believe that an understanding of how different processes work and a further knowledge of various topics can aid in any field of study. I would like to see the correlations between business and mapping in this course and be able to apply these correlations in the future. I also think mapping is just a cool topic to have knowledge in because it has such widespread uses and not many people have an understanding of the topic. I also think the data collection piece that is involved with mapping will be useful in my field of study. Mapping requires data that is applied to maps and I hope to gain a further understanding of how to turn raw data into a useful finished product. Statistical analysis is a big part of mapping in this course so I hope to increase my skills in analysis and critical thinking by taking this course. I have always been a big history buff when it comes to how things were created and the creator’s background. I hope this course will teach me some history of map making and how it has progressed and evolved over time. I also learn best my doing hands on activities and am a visual learner. I think this course will allow me to learn about maps by creating them and using hands on activities to give me experience in map making.