I have been looking back on everything I have worked on and learned over the past four months, and my first semester of Interaction Design at Ulster. I have really enjoyed what I’ve been able to learn, but to be completely honest, I have found it incredibly difficult to learn in the environment of the pandemic. I find that online learning makes all the work seem incredibly detached from reality, and that I find it much harder than I should to keep on top of things. But, I feel that I am getting better adjusted now that half the year is over, and the initial shock of online learning has begun to wear off. I want to begin the next semester with a positive and confident mindset, which will motivate me to perform to my best abilities.
I am proud of what I have been able to produce so far this year, particularly projects such as my Type Specimen Screen, Follow the Rhythm and my Web Essay. I have learned a lot about different softwares, websites and applications, ones that I have never used before or even heard of, such as Figma, Visual Studio Code, GitHub and Google Fonts. These have helped me to feel more confident in my abilities as a designer.
One thing I want to try and do better next semester is keeping up with my workload more. I feel that there were plenty of times this semester where I felt very overwhelmed with the amount of work that was piling up because I had no motivation. I felt I was falling behind at certain points. To counteract this, I want to begin keeping a planner. This will help me to write down everything I need to do each week, and give myself the equal balance of work and personal time. I have enjoyed the work, and I am determined to continue to do well.