I chose five places on the Carleton campus that hold great importance to me. I chose Laird Stadium(Where I play football), Sayles Hill(where I study most days), CMC, (where I attend two classes this term), Willis hall(the hall of my major, Economics), and Goodhue(where I first arrived at Carleton). I used the data set from Google Sheets, which was converted into a csv linked here. This allowed me to easily organize these locations, using their coordinates, address, which made the transition to ArcGIS relatively easy and allowed for me to clearly identify the locations that I put in the csv.
I then began to edit on ArcGIS, which proved to be more challenging than I anticipated. A lot of the features felt hidden which consequently took time to find and use correctly. Once I got the hang of it, however, I was able to correctly use the layering features to accurately depict the map. One strategy I used was different-colored dots to separate the locations by address. Here is the link to my map, which displays these places represented by not only different colored dots, but also uniquely shaped building which highlights the structures from the csv file. I found it super difficult to find the tracing feature, which resulted in plenty of trial and error. However, even with my struggles with ArcGIS, it allowed me to navigate much more easily for future usage. I believe that this strategy of mapping is very effective in the realm of digital humanities because it allows for very meaningful differentiating factors between important landmarks, which could be used on much larger scales. For example, ArcGIS could be used to differentiate mountain ranges, big cities, and other areas of global, national, and state study. Despite the difficult features, once the user gains experience mapping, DH will continue to benefit from features like this.
Your locations were pretty personal, which made the map more relevant than simply charting random points, which is why it was easier to read. . Your claim about ArcGIS being frustrating at first but becomes easier with practice is quite applicable, and I believe that many of us have experienced this as well. It seems like a reasonable idea to make everything understandable and apparent by utilizing various colors and creating shapes. Overall, it’s a great combination that your project demonstrates how mapping can be both technical and personal.