In my opinion, ArcMap is the first legitimate GIS system I have operated on in this class. I know our Mapquest project is technically considered GIS, however it seems rather elementary compared to a sophisticated program like ArcMap. ArcMap offers so many options and is an extremely complex program. It takes a long time to truly understand the program and utilize it to its capability, but once this is done ArcMap can do wonders.
The biggest problem I had with ArcMap is remembering the steps. The tutorial took me through same steps more than once, yet by the second time I still did not have full understanding of it. Not until the last few pages of the tutorial did I somewhat memorize how to insert a legend and bar scale. If I had trouble with simple tasks like that then GIS is a lot more difficult than I had previously imagined.
Obviously, ArcMap is an amazing GIS program. The options you have to describe a simple map with are incredible. After completing the tutorial I was amazed on what kind of work I had just done. To show the noise barrier, ranges, scales, and other aspects of the map that I did was truly interesting. I never thought that a GIS system like this had the capability to show some of the stuff the ArcMap showed me.
I cannot imagine how hard it must have been for someone to master a program like ArcMap. I spent a good three hours (which seemed like 10) doing the tutorial and I have just stepped into the shallow waters of this GIS system. To fully comprehend the program must takes years. However, once I started to get the hang of things and was adding text boxes and charts to my project it was truly satisfying. Hopefully before this class is over I will have the ability to work with GIS programs like this and apply it to everyday life.
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