If you have ever been punched in the stomach, then you will understand the feeling I got today when I realized I had lost all of my work from the past year on my USB drive.
As college students, we are doing one thing. That “one thing” is building our resume, whether it is through classes, extra-curricular activities, volunteer work or whatever. Technology makes it easy for us to keep track of our lives, as we are the tech savvy generation. Don’t be fooled by that title, because we still make mistakes. We have computers, email, the Internet and constant access to the world around us. But when technology lets you down, it lets you down hard. It is not a good feeling when all of your work suddenly disappears from a crashed hard drive, a stolen computer or a broken USB drive.
We have all been there at one time or another. So from one student to another, here is some advice: Make sure you back up your work on multiple devices. I am not just talking about homework assignments either. I am talking about important documents, big projects, creative photos, budget proposals, detailed instructions, a professional’s business card or whatever is actually important to you. It is really easy to lose information on a computer or even a hard document and not know how to recover it or regain that information.
I am sure all of you have lost bits and pieces of your essays, homework assignments or have been really frustrated with your computer. It is even more frustrating when it is for work or for a class which starts in 20 minutes. So, be proactive. It really sucks to have to learn the hard way. Trust me, you do not want to learn from experience, like yours truly. According to filerecovery.org, 13 percent of data loss is due to human error. On average a single data loss can cost a company $2,900.
Technology is wonderful, but sometimes it does you no favors if you make a mistake. I really hope no one on campus has ever lost a year’s worth of work, but if you have you are not alone.