Reality Bites

The reality that we’re entering our final semester has finally hit home, there is only a few months left on the course, but they’re an important few months. I’m really looking forward to finishing the course now and being able to put everything that I have learnt into practise in the outside world.

One of the most important parts of the next few months is the SMLP (Self Managed Learning Plan), where I chose a skill and manage my learning throughout the assignment. I’m quite nervous about this, I’ve never self-taught myself anything in the past but hopefully the resources that I’ve identified will aid me in the learning process.

The skill that I have chosen to learn is PHP. PHP is a skill mentioned more and more on job specifications as a required element of an applicant, so knowing this skill will increase my chances of employment after the course.

The creation of my portfolio is another very important stage of the next few months. My portfolio is the key tool to gaining employment and will be a showcase of my skills to show employers. Because of this, my portfolio needs to be adaptable. I’m nervous about doing this, as designing something for myself is my weakness, I’m never happy with anything I design for myself – or I get bored with the design very quickly – which is something I need to snap out of.

My biggest fear over the next few months is the final presentation. I’ve never really enjoyed presentations and the final one is a major jump from the 10 minutes that we’ve been presenting so far. It’s going to take a lot of work; practise and courage to present first time without letting nerves take over. I think that due to the fact the presentation is about my college work and my thoughts and feelings during the 2 years on the course, it will be easier to talk about than a random subject.

It is quite nerve racking thinking about the amount of work that needs doing over the next few months, I’ve certainly got to put everything that I’ve learnt into practise – especially the time planning aspect. Juggling motherhood, pregnancy, college work and every day life is certainly no easy challenge, but its one I’m willing to tackle.

When the course has finished, I feel that my level of employability will be at a stage where I can be comfortable applying for positions in the industry. During the course, I have been doing some small web jobs as a freelance and would like to continue this, but I feel that even though I have had some experience with clients, I would be better going into an agency or in-house job to improve my skills further.

In summary, I need to get my teeth stuck into the final few months and not fall at the final hurdle. I need to bring together a portfolio, learn PHP and tackle my final presentation in order to do so – although this is nerve racking, I’m looking forward to it!

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PHP Resources for SMLP

1. The PHP Anthology - Shafik, Turmelle et al.
A Sitepoint book which contains a collection of PHP solutions and will be a helpful resource during the early stages of my learning.

2. Build your own database driven website using PHP and MySQL - Kevin Yank
Another Sitepoint book which expands on the information in the Anthology. Combining PHP with MySQL to create dynamic websites.

3. W3C PHP Tutorial
A tutorial website run as part of W3C schools, contains complete references of functions to learn and practise.

4. PHP5 in easy steps - Mike McGrath
A step by step PHP 5 book, almost a "PHP for dummies" type of book.

5. PHPBuilder.com
Another online tutorial resource.

6. Tutorialized
Another online PHP tutorial resource.

7. Sitepoint PHP & MySQL Tutorial
Alongside the books, Sitepoint allow you to further your skills with online tutorials.

8. Killerphp
Another online tutorial website, this one includes video tutorials.

9. PHP Cookbook - OReilly
A book with quick PHP solutions.

10. Tizag
A beginners PHP learning resource.

SMLP Skill Learning

In the current Interactive Media industry there are a number of skills required to land yourself a job. Amongst the usual skills of XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Stylesheets), is the developing language PHP.

“According to Odesk, demand for PHP programmers is nearly double that for the next most popular skillset. Indeed, PHP accounts for nearly 20 per cent of all IT jobs posted by businesses.“ - source: IT Examiner

PHP is being requested more and more in jobs roles and is therefore becoming almost a required skill (usually being teamed up with SQL). Due to the increase in job advertisements stating PHP as a required skill, this is the area in which I would like to expand my knowledge most. Learning this skill will enable me a better chance of getting myself a job once I finish the course.

Due to the high demand for PHP, a person who is trained with this programming skill is more likely to get a job faster than a developer/programmer who doesn’t. Therefore, this is a skill I would like to be able to include on my CV as a skill that I have and know.

My previous knowledge of PHP is almost none. In the past I have copied and pasted open source PHP code into my work, adjusting it to suit my needs, but have never written any from scratch. During the course so far, I have discovered a like for coding over designing and learning PHP would aid me to delve more into the coding side of building websites.

Due to the many advantages of learning PHP, I have decided that this is the skill that I would like to learn about in my SMLP (Self Managed Learning Plan).

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Second Year, First Half

Getting onto the second year was an achievement for me; initially I thought that juggling college work with family life might be too much and that I may succumb to the pressure. I'm not saying that the second year has been easy, but it's a way of life that I've had to get used to and one that I have now established a routine for. At the end of year 1, I really looked forward to year 2 as it brought fresh challenges in the shape of a CSS assignment and the newly added CMS unit too.

The second year started off with an assignment over the summer, I didn't mind the work over the summer but didn't really relish the thought that 3 of the 4 tasks were essays (I'm not the world's best essay writer!). The business plan, for me, was the best part of the assignment and something I really got my teeth into. Although, stupidly, I referred the assignment due to my referencing and my ignorance to the chosen format - schoolboy mistake!

Returning to college brought along the fresh challenge of working in a team with 3 other members of my class. This is something that we, as a class, have never done before on a scale like this and along the way we’ve had some initial teething problems to sort out. This unit certainly made me re-think my time planning - initially I was spending more time on the team assignment rather than my other slightly short assignment. I eradicated this quickly and a new time planning routine was brought into place.

A key aspect of year 1 was the feedback sessions that we had throughout. I’d like to think that I’ve taken note of all the key points that were mentioned to me in these sessions and this does show in the grade progression I’ve had so far. My first assignment of the second year (not including the summer one) resulted in a Merit, which I am very pleased with.

Although the sketchbooks aren’t an assessable unit, like they were last year, I’m still using them in exactly the same way and finding them as much use as ever. I’m still a bit fazed by the idea of pulling my sheets of paper from them and using them as evidence, but I’m sure I’ll get used to this in time.

I can certainly say that the second year has taught me a lot already, you should never believe that just because one thing happened in a certain way the first year, that it will happen that way this year too. You’re always working towards improvement and this is hard to come to grips but I’m getting there. College work and family life aren’t such a juggling act no more, they’re still 2 separate entities of their own, but neither overlap the other no more – which makes things incredibly easier.

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Soft Skills for Employment

In today’s world, being a graduate from a higher education course, you are expected to have certain skills that you can apply in the world of employment.

Working as a Team
Every job expects you to be able to work in a team and this is something I do practically every day at college. Working as a team has helped me to gain confidence with the people around me and helped me to get to know them better – especially my team for A11.

These social skills then transfer into the design industry, being friendly and talking to other people in a polite manner is something you’re going to have to do on a daily basis, whether with clients or employers, to communicate ideas across.

Presentations
Presentations are something I have struggled with in the past; standing up in front of people and talking really sets me off into a gibbering wreck. This is something I greatly need to improve as in the design industry I will be expected to present for a number of things; pitching ideas, communicating a design, reporting on research to groups etc.

Time Planning
This is a vital skill, especially in design work, meeting deadlines is the make or break of a company and it’s reputation. An employer will expect deadlines to be met. My time planning has improved vastly since the first assignment! I’ve always thought of myself as a punctual person who is rarely late for anything, as I like to arrange at work/college at least 20 minutes before my start time.

Problem Solving
Being able to solve problems relating to web work is something I find I am quite good at. Using this skill in employment will mean that my time is used more efficiently for projects, which in the long run will mean that I complete more and more projects in less time. Which means that during 'downtime' I may encounter, I can be developing and learning other design related skills.

Before the end of the year...

Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Salary: £27,000 per annum
Company: Webrecruit
Job Type: Permanent
Job Title: Web Designer
Source: CWjobs.co.uk

I initially chose this job due to the skills mentioned in the advertisement. The position doesn’t state whether the role is best suited to a junior, middleweight or senior designer.

At the end of this college year, I would ideally be able to apply for a job like this having gained all the necessary skills. Commercial experience seems to be the deal clincher on a majority of job advertisements that I have seen, so over the next year I am going to do my best to land myself some more freelance work out of college hours.

The skills required include Interface Design, Graphic Design, HTML and CSS – all of which I have some experience in, commercially and non-commercially. But I feel that my skills could be improved in order to present a more impressive portfolio upon interview.

Other skills that I wish to improve upon during the course of the next year include PHP, mySQL, CMS and I’d also like to branch out into Ruby on Rails. Although this job is for a web designer, I would also like to think that by the end of the course, I could apply for web developer roles as well.

In conclusion, by the end of this year I want to improve my skill set in preparation for employment, take on more commercial work outside of college to improve my portfolio and complete my HND to the best of my ability.

Thanks for reading,
Sue

Second Year, why am I still here?

After my achievements of the first year, it made perfect sense for me to continue and progress onto second year. After all, this is the industry that I want as my career.

Now we have the assignment schedule for the second year, I'm really looking forward to A13: Content is King. CMS (Content Management Systems) is something that I've been trying to get myself into over the past few months but I've yet to try and use it properly. Another unit that I'm looking forward to is the SMLP (Self-Managed Learning Plan) - another chance for me to learn a key language, PHP.

When it comes to employability; this second year is going to be the most vital to ensure that I gain the skills I need. At the end of this year, I would envisage myself to be in the position where I can enter the world of employment. Which is something I aspire to achieve, rather than my initial intentions of entering a third year in a different institute.

In summary, during the course of this year, I need to be able to give my best in every assignment that I tackle and achieve the best of my potential. Ensure that my portfolio is adaptable to all situations ready for employment. And finally, I want to enjoy this year, because this time next year, I will be in the big bad world of full time employment!

Thanks for reading,
Sue