Week 4 Lab

I thought using ArcGIS was a unique and interesting experience. The tutorial was very helpful however there were several times in which I got lost or confused with the controls. I was able to figure out how to correct most of the mistakes I made but it was more time consuming than I originally thought.

Some problems I encountered with ArcGIS were mainly the control buttons. I kept having difficulties zooming in and out of the entire map when I was trying to focus on one of them. Another problem I encountered often was locating certain files because I stored the tutorial and files on my flash drive.

Some pitfalls of GIS are that it is a very in depth system which would require someone who is not just geographically oriented but very computer skilled too. People who do not know how to use computers that well will find a program such as ArcGIS very difficult. These difficulties however can be very beneficial to someone who is skilled in this program.

GIS offers massive potential for projects such as in the tutorial of city planning when considering noise from an airport. You can almost apply GIS to about anything. The difficulties I mentioned earlier could also be considered as potential for GIS by allowing a variety of customization tools for the GIS user. ArcGIS provides a massive amount of customization, which can give maps with a lot of information a little easier to understand once a map is completed.