Week 16 at Wakefield College - HND Interactive Media

At the beginning of this new term I was told that we are now entering the longest part of the entire college year. Eight straight weeks without any time off, but to be frankly honest these eight weeks have absolutely flown past. Every college has been filled with hard work on my part and I’ve never had a lot of free time, which is probably why it’s gone as fast as it has. Having said that, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Along with my feedback group of Chris H and Craig, we have had many interesting and informative feedback meetings. Which usually tended to go on for much longer that our allocated time. :)

Over the 3 weeks off I plan to really take my mind away from anything college related, but I know for a fact that I won’t be able to do this. It won’t be long before I’m back on my computer and fiddling with Photoshop. But I do have a ski holiday booked, which should be a great way to relax, if only for a week.

One of the many feedback meetings involved a lengthy conversation about committing to what is important in our lives, which in my case are my career and the course. So, I plan to make many changes after the Christmas period, which will allow me to do this. Altering my working hours to fit around my self study will be one of them. Taking self study more seriously than I have done so far is another. Deep inside I know that I am capable than much more than just ‘pass’ grades, and I am yet to prove this, but will strive to do so.

That’s it for now; I’d just like to wish everyone all the best over the festive season and hope to see you back in the New Year.

Week 15 at Wakefield College - HND Interactive Media

It’s the week before deadline day, and things are starting to get a bit hectic. Self study this week will be significantly longer and more focused than ever so far. The fact that we have 2 assignments to hand in rather than just the one makes it all the more difficult.

I know that there is a lot of work to do over the next week, but knowing that once I get this work out of the way I can then have three weeks off, is very encouraging and I will not be wasting any time to get this work out of the way. Even though the bulk of the work is done for both assignments, there are a lot of small changes and corrections to make, which last time around I underestimated and found myself struggling the very day before the deadline.

I still don't believe that I have mastered time management, something I’ve never really been good at, but the weekly time plan I found very helpful and the "mini deadlines" even more so. Had there not been a combination of these two I think I would now find my self having a lot more work to do. This is probably because I would have adopted the attitude that I am so very used to "There's plenty of time and I’ll get it done". I know the importance of good time management in everyday life and not just in college and it is something that I am constantly trying to achieve.

This week we were also told our new feedback groups for after Christmas. I will now be with Scott and Julian. I was very pleased when I saw I was with these two people, because I have not really spoken much with them in the past and I feel it's a chance for me to get to know them a bit better.

Comments and feedback, always welcome.

Week 14 at Wakefield College - HND Interactive Media

Nothing really too special about this week, another one of those "just get on with it" weeks.Submission ready for next week, well that’s the plan. Hopefully, mine will be submission ready even though I was unable to do any work on my assignments over the last weekend because I had no computer. Hopefully this week I will have got my new one delivered and the work can continue. As far as the actual work is concerned I think I’ve managed to keep up well with the "mini deadlines" which has allowed me to be able to finish the work on time. There are a few alterations I need to make and a few additions but overall I have done the majority of the work and am feeling confident.

Thursday was great, practically the whole day on PhotoShop, the best program in the history of mankind :) I created some banners which (for the first attempt) I am very happy with. I will try to get these banners on my blog as soon as possible. The photo restoration task which I have completed I think I will need to re-visit. When I started, I was really happy with what I had done, but it started to loose its realistic look as son as I started to add colour.

Thursday morning before we started to create the banners, we were told to draw out the sizes of the two banners (160x600 and 350x200) and were asked to draw concept designs for each of the images we had. The longest time we had was 2 minutes and the shortest 30 seconds. I found this very challenging especially with the shorter time limit, I much prefer to think about what I am going to do and then do it, rather than just spontaneously come up with random designs. But I do understand that spontaneity will trigger other ideas and I think that was the whole point of the task, to try and get us out of that state of mind.