Junior Year Reflection

Reflection

Over my three years of being in the eComm program I have learned many valuable takeaways, but today I will only share one from each of the eComm guarantees. First technology, the main takeaway I got for technology is the importance of remembering that technology is not some force to be wielded but a obstacle to push through. This means that technology does no always do what you want it to, but when you finally get it working you have grown in knowledge and experience. Second is collaboration, from my time working on the TV 25 website I learned that sometimes when working with other people specially a client it is very hard to balance creating something they envisioned and creating something that is actually functional and looks good. Third is communication, there are many times, like working on my PHP sites where I had to communicate with some of my classmates. From this I learned that one of the key things to communicating effectively in web design is being able to understand something enough to teach others it, so when they need your help you can give it effectively and when you need their help they are more willing to give it. Next is project management, this is one of the lessons I had the hard way, sometimes you run into things you don't understand and just want to give up and do something else. But, the best thing you can do to keep the project on track is admit that you are not all knowing and ask others for help or try and look it up on your own. Finally leadership, leadership is a hard one to recognize in an environment of people working on individual projects, but is clear in helping others. A good leader needs to be able to stop and focus on others needs and help them navigate through a problem without doing it for them so they can learn and improve. 

Besides learning a lot of takeaways about technology and other parts of being a web designer I also learned a lot about myself. For instance, I am good at using my prior knowledge to design sites that are pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. For example, my new index page is very clean and has only the important things. On the other hand, I fail to effectively use my time. This is usually because I get stuck in learning something new. I have definitely improved in this matter since freshmen year, by learning to swallow my pride and ask for help. But I can still improve further by keeping myself motivated to push through hard situations.

Now just because I have all of this knowledge about the eComm guarantees and myself does not mean that all my problems are fixed, I still need to apply this knowledge to my work. These things I have learned are not just me dumping my wisdom upon you, it is me showing the things that I am trying to do to improve myself and make me a better web designer. I don't always remember to do all these things but the important thing is that I intend to improve and and actively working towards that goal.

Now even thought eComm has given me these experiences and lessons, there are ways that it can improve. For one, I would have liked to have a few collaborative projects with other web designers or other strands of eComm. For example, it would have been interesting and informative to design a site that contains a video and then have some animated background with a amazing logo and images to go with it all. It would have given us more real world experience were we are not the only people working on something and need to communicate with others who do not understand how web design works and help them learn while learning about their strand.

Overall, I really have enjoyed these first three years of eComm. They have taught me a lot of hard lessons and helped shape me into a well rounded web designer. I hope to gain even more experiences and knowledge in my final year but I will miss the program after I graduate.