First Year Reflection
Looking back on my first post of the year, it strikes me that I have truly found something I not only enjoy doing but something I can really see myself doing in the future.
Reflecting on each of the last seven assignments I can say the following:
Ideas Generation – Being told in the first week this assignment was going to run all year did seem a little daunting at first. My issues at the time were being able to choose things that inspired me and also being able to keep a development record of the creations I made. Over the year I think my ideas generation has improved to a peak in the third quarter and has now fallen a little from that time. I intend to bring this back to my best starting with my first assignment in the new academic year.
Computing Fundamentals – This assignment at the time seemed like a very academic start to the year and almost a step back from where I had been previously. I now see that this was setting the groundwork for any one who didn’t have the base knowledge I had brought to my studies. I was happy with my submission at the time and bar the minor slip up I am still happy with how this assignment played out.
Interactive Media Technology with Historical and Contextual Referencing – This assignment was very eye opening to the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to get a website up and running. This is where I learned just designing a page and putting it on the web is nowhere near sufficient to creating an effective user friendly web interface. This assignment will also stand me in good stead for the rest of my career as it provided a solid base to improve my whole web design process from.
Typographic Skills – This assignment gave me knowledge second to none in relation to typography. The topics I was taught in this eight week period are reproduced nearly everyday in someone’s blog throughout the world. This is where it really hit home that the knowledge I’m gaining is industry relevant.
Interactive Media Design & Authoring – This is where the real fun stuff began, coding, optimising, uploading and testing were the main activities of this assignment. Hopefully, these will be the things I’m doing on a regular basis for a long time to come. For my first ever web page I was satisfied with the results and the overall grade I received.
Image Manipulation Applications – This assignment for me was Photoshop but not as I know it. Mocking up a website in Photoshop was an alien concept to me as I had previously used other software which I felt was more accurate. I was pleased with the results I achieved and the processes I learned during this assignment.
Computer Applications in Art & Design – More thought at the planning stage would have aided me immensely in this assignment. Having chosen a specific colour scheme for my designs this then meant I had to carry this throughout my work. I didn’t notice until later on that this was also the same colour I had used in other assignments. Thus leaving my work for the first year monochromatic. The final bonus of this year was managing to complete the activities on schedule leaving me a very stress free submission eve.
The Year Ahead
I think to be able to look forward I need to be aware of where my strengths and weaknesses have been over the last nine months. I also need to look toward my ultimate goal of being confident enough to make the move straight into employment after the second year.
The following areas are where I would see my strengths lie:
Organisation – This has been evident throughout the last year that I am always aware of upcoming deadlines and what I need to get done for when. Multiple people have also made comments to me that I am the organised one in class.
Time Management – Initially where I thought I had issues with time management I believe I am now disciplined enough to know when I can take a break and still meet timescales. This became apparent when I was able to take Easter off in the busiest assignment of the year and still achieved the relevant goals on time.
Ability to Learn – Having not really built even a page using XHTML and CSS before the course started. I am now in a position that I am happy enough to take on small freelance projects in order to increase my portfolio come the end of the course. It has always been one of my strengths that I can pick things up very quickly.
I would think my weaknesses lie in the following areas:
My Own High Standards – So far, although I feel I have been tested with some of the work I have completed. I don’t feel some of the solutions I have provided have shown off my full capability. I have not yet produced a piece of work that I can look back on and say “This is the very best I can produce”.
Lack of Foresight – At the moment my designs to me feel very samey. To use a cliche, I need to step outside the box and start thinking of the end product at the very start of the process and not the end. Currently my web solutions have been simple and hardly challenging.
My target for the long term is to be employable within the industry and as such I need to be able to stand out from the crowd in order to do this I need to set myself realistic but demanding goals.
I would see the following as suitable goals for my second year:
- Learning PHP and Actionscript 3.0
- Having a more comprehensive knowledge of Javascript
- Being able to build multiple page sites to web standards.
- Leaving the course with an online portfolio and brand identity for myself.
In regards to grades I would like to achieve in my second year. I would like to strengthen my current profile and also improve with a of minimum merits and hopefully at least two distinctions.
In summary, I have learned a lot in the last nine months and hope to continue the progress on the next year of the course to enable me to maximise my employability this time next year.