senior project
![Picture](/uploads/1/2/1/6/121619756/russel-headshot_orig.jpg)
Russell Johnston is the Family of Ministries and Communications Director at The Cove Church in Santa Rosa, CA. He graduated from Sonoma State University with a B. A. in Philosophy and a M.A.T. from Fuller Theological Seminary. He has worked at The Cove for the last six years. Additionally, he is married and has two young boys. In his free time he enjoys watching films, following the NBA, and visiting new places.
For my work based learning project, I helped re-designs our churches youth group room. We started by asking our youth kids what they wanted in the new room. We first asked what color the walls should be, and we came to the agreement of having grey walls with a navy blue accent wall. We also decided that LED strip lights would be fun for everyone. They came up with many great ideas like a TV entertainment center with video games, board games, and some other random supplies like blankets and youth shirts. I chose to do this as my senior project because I love being crafty and creative, and redesigning the youth group room gave me the opportunity to do so.
My mentor's role was to help me come up with detailed ideas that could be incorporated into the overall design of the room. He taught me a lot of painting tips and provided me with all the materials I needed to execute this project. He also gave me the creative freedom to be able to design the room in such a way that would be aesthetically pleasing and functional to teenagers.
The biggest challenge I faced was the loss of time due to the pandemic. I was unable to go into the church for about 9 months which set me back. It was a real struggle but my mentor and I managed to find a safe way for me to complete the project. This setback helped me keep track of time and work on my time management skills because I lost so many months of work and I had to learn how to manage all my time as best as I could. A smaller problem I faced was when I was painting the vines with a stencil, I dropped my paint and about 2 cups of paint fell onto the wall and wooden floor so I had to spend almost an hour cleaning up wasted paint. I managed to clean every last bit up and you can't even notice it was ever spilled.
I learned a lot about myself during this project, I learned that I am a very handy person and I'm very good at coming up with quick solutions. I made the stencil all by myself out of paper but I soon realized that the paint was causing the stencil to tear so I made a new one out of a plastic folder from the dollar store. I would say that my painting skills grew so much. Before this I haven't painted a stencil without spray paint.
I learned how to plan ahead and listen to my mentor. I also learned how to use my dad's ladder, it is very complicated I also learned how to remove lots of spilled paint from floor.
I can use this skill in the future when I have my own house or if someone wants me to paint their walls I will know exactly how. This project was exactly what I imagined, I had to listen to feedback, but lots of effort into painting, and listen to what I was told to do. I discovered that I am an excellent planner when it comes to spacing stuff or hanging things on walls like LED lights. This is not a career I would pursue but I would say yes if an opportunity like this ever came up again.
My mentor's role was to help me come up with detailed ideas that could be incorporated into the overall design of the room. He taught me a lot of painting tips and provided me with all the materials I needed to execute this project. He also gave me the creative freedom to be able to design the room in such a way that would be aesthetically pleasing and functional to teenagers.
The biggest challenge I faced was the loss of time due to the pandemic. I was unable to go into the church for about 9 months which set me back. It was a real struggle but my mentor and I managed to find a safe way for me to complete the project. This setback helped me keep track of time and work on my time management skills because I lost so many months of work and I had to learn how to manage all my time as best as I could. A smaller problem I faced was when I was painting the vines with a stencil, I dropped my paint and about 2 cups of paint fell onto the wall and wooden floor so I had to spend almost an hour cleaning up wasted paint. I managed to clean every last bit up and you can't even notice it was ever spilled.
I learned a lot about myself during this project, I learned that I am a very handy person and I'm very good at coming up with quick solutions. I made the stencil all by myself out of paper but I soon realized that the paint was causing the stencil to tear so I made a new one out of a plastic folder from the dollar store. I would say that my painting skills grew so much. Before this I haven't painted a stencil without spray paint.
I learned how to plan ahead and listen to my mentor. I also learned how to use my dad's ladder, it is very complicated I also learned how to remove lots of spilled paint from floor.
I can use this skill in the future when I have my own house or if someone wants me to paint their walls I will know exactly how. This project was exactly what I imagined, I had to listen to feedback, but lots of effort into painting, and listen to what I was told to do. I discovered that I am an excellent planner when it comes to spacing stuff or hanging things on walls like LED lights. This is not a career I would pursue but I would say yes if an opportunity like this ever came up again.