The database assignment was an eye opening experience for me in more ways than one...
First of all, as someone who can barely build a spreadsheet on Excel, I found it challenging to figure out how to use Access and Excel to organize the information required for the assignment. It would definitely have been better to have had a longer adjustment period to Access but thanks to the tutorial and writing down all the directions given to us by the proff, I was able to finish the assignment without becoming completely lost in Access. I am definitely more confident now using Excel, it just took lots of time and practice. Using Access, still not so confident, unless I am building a simple query on an existing database I would probably have to resort to watching YouTube tutorials to save me.
Secondly, I underestimated the emotional impact working with a cemetery database can have. At the beginning, just looking at the plot numbers and how many people were buried in them was not as difficult, but once I got to the part of the assignment where I had to read the inscriptions,such as age at death and cause (of death) it really brought home the magnitude of those people's lives. They all had occupations, and people they cared about (and vice versa) and not all of them got to live long lives, specially the infants and children. Overall it made me appreciate the life expectancy nowadays and also want to pay a respectful visit to St. Stephen's Cemetery to thank the people whose personal information helped me learn how to navigate Access.
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