Reflection

This is a brief reflection of my journey through my second year of my degree course. It has been an contrast of interest and stress, mumbled up into lots of varied projects! I feel more competent as a designer after this second year and I am eager (pencil in hand) to begin my third and final year!

Personal Achievements
I have overcome a lot of annoying work based habits this term, in particular my poor time keeping. My time before was either spent delving into too much research, or jumping straight into what I thought would be a fantastic design idea (without actually covering all areas first). I have changed this however by spreading time evenly depending on how much I think is unnecessary to allocate to the task. Ultimately  this has helped me to keep on track and stride forward to the next thing within my design process. 

Skills Development
Over the course of my second year, I have picked up some new skills within different design software that I was familiar with, but I have also taught myself new packages/programs to benefit my work. In particular I have developed my knowledge of Kerkythea, a rendering program used for Sketchup models. I also learnt Movie Maker from scratch, (a program I would normally avoid due to copious amounts of techno-phobia!) I now know that I must stretch myself to be as knowledgeable as possible within a variety of programs to make me more employable when my course comes to an end.

Action Plan For My Final Year
Realistically, the time spent between now and my final year has to be focused on becoming more employable. This means learning new software, building up my professional portfolio and trying to get some studio based work experience. All this will stand me in good stead whilst applying for jobs. After researching different design companies, it has become apparent to me that they like candidates to have experience in Adobe creative suite. Its becoming clear that this is a recurring requirement. Therefore over summer I plan on looking into this more and perhaps purchasing the software and teaching myself its benefits. Additionally, I need to start entering work that I have completed off my own brief into my portfolio, to really show that I can work independently. A logical idea also would be to really consider the area of design I want to thrive in once I leave the course, and focus strongly on this area throughout my final year.