This introduction to geographic information systems was incredibly fun and a lot more rewarding and creative than I thought it was going to be. It took a lot of patience to figure out what exactly were the differences between ArcGIS 9 in the tutorial and ArcGIS 10 as the actual software that was being used. I can see now that geographic information systems takes a lot of patience in general, even if you know what you are doing. The painstaking process of following every direction meticulously drove the point home that this is a software that can do amazing things but only if used correctly. This is why neogeography is a cool phenomenon, but one with many downsides. Having a trained geographer create maps makes all the difference in cartographic processes.
I was concerned that maybe this first tutorial would turn me off from geographic information systems completely. I've thought about careers in public policy and planning and figured that GIS knowledge would assist me greatly in achieving those goals. I thought that if I did not like this experience, I would have to think of new fields to go into. Thankfully, although the process was long, it was fun and only piqued my interest in the planning field even more.
There are many advantages to using geographic information systems. One useful component are the layers. You can mix, match, and manipulate data to show only the information you want out of the tons of information available to you. The organization is impeccable and gets rid of a lot of work that would otherwise have to be done manually. Computers make the process of making maps much quicker than ones done by hand. In the event of an emergency, maps are critical to have, and the quicker processes make response more feasible.
However, the process of learning GIS is time-intensive and does not forgive mistakes easily. People can easily get frustrated with the software and stop from learning it altogether. The software market is also dominated by one company, ESRI, which hinders competition from developing possibly better tools. It is also easy to get carried away with the creativity allowed in GIS. Choosing a certain color scheme has all the effect in the presentation of the data and can either facilitate or harm the point you're trying to make.
