At the beginning of the year we started with a few little tasks to start to get all the class to bond together. I believe these tasks where set to break the ice between all of the new students as no one knew anyone. One of the tasks was to set hopes and fears of the next to years. I’ve found that I’ve managed to meet some of my hopes and also sunk into some of the fears.
One of the thinks I did sink into for quite a while was losing interest in this course. I think this was because I was adjusting to the new workload and I also wasn’t sure if this was the right course for me. As time went on my self-study began to suffer as well as not doing the work to my full potential. This really began to frustrate me as I seemed to have wasted a year of my life again, and also I didn’t appear to be doing what I thought on the course. I gather there wasn’t much I could do at this moment in time except find out if I actually wanted to do the course.
After a while on the course though I started to feel more at ease with the work and start to do work at home without taking it as much of a choir. From this my work started to look a lot better and I started to hit all the deadlines with plenty of time to spare. I started to also look at other methods in which to achieve the higher grades.
Something a learnt from the first assignment was to never underestimate the size of a task. The main problem with underestimating, was not actually knowing how long a task is going to take. Some thing else that was really alien to me in this assignment was time planning, this was something I had never done before. I couldn’t get my head around recording what I had done at the time of doing this. After a few times of doing this I started to plan a lot more efficiently then I had been doing in the past. I found from doing this I could plan a lot more efficiently.
I thought on the first assignment I was going to reach the higher grades easily, but when the assignments where graded I was far from getting these marks. I suppose this was not from reading the criteria properly. As the year progressed I started to struggle because of my attitude towards the course, this was because I was trying to find myself on the course. It’s been only the last couple of months I have actually put the extra effort towards the work and should hopefully achieve the higher grades.
One of the things that have been hard is getting new to all the new software. Some of the software as been relatively easy to learn as I have used programs like them before, but others have been a right up hill struggle. This is because you cannot really be an expert in all the programs, as it would take years of learning, as there is so much to learn in the programs. One of the programs that have been a big struggle was Photoshop, this was because I have never used a program like this one before and it seemed to be the largest one to learn.
One of the things I have done a lot this year is leave things in tell the last minute, over time this is something I have done less and less. I found by doing things when you plan to do them you leave yourself plenty of time to do the smaller tasks better. The most obvious example of this is the sketchbook assignment compared to the last assignment. In the sketchbook assignment I have really struggled over the last week to meet most of the criteria as I totally forgot about that assignment, but on the other hand with the last assignment I have left myself plenty of time to look through all my work and also check everything is there. I found this a lot easier as I have plenty of time to check thought the assignment as well as not feeling stressed. In the future I am going to take this into consideration, as I will also feel a lot better about myself knowing I have managed my time correctly.
One of the things that I as changed from the beginning of the year is wanting to do a top up year. I feel this is because all of the tutoring on the course is at its best as well as feeling like this is the last hurdle for me. I feel like I have come to the end of the learning curve and want to just get into a job and get on with it. I have also realised that being a freelance web designer is also not the best job as it’s a big risk and there is plenty of people doing this all ready. So I now believe that I just want to get into the industry and see where to go from there.
Over the next year I am hoping to improve on my people skills as well as been able to communicate with people a lot better as well, I feel that I haven’t really put all the effort in as I was doing at the start of the year. I should find this a lot easier then the begging of the year as there is less people to get to know.
Something else I need to do is start to learn CSS before I go back as this will be really helpful as I will know what John is talking about next year and I will give myself a better chance of understanding the code myself. The last thing I need to do before I go back is keep brushing up my skills as I don’t want to be rusty on all the things I have learnt this year when I start the new assignments.
At the end of next year I hope to have created a portfolio that represents me through all of my work, I also hope to understand CSS and HTML a lot better. I also hope to achieve the higher grades and put a lot more effort in then I have done this year. I also hope to get into a job within the business and start earning some money from something I enjoy doing.
- To get on to the second year
- Pass all units first time
- Get at least two merits
- Build a site using CSS
- Build a portfolio
