In The Deep End

Whilst away from college for the summer it felt as if I had been away forever, I had forgotten about college and was relaxing. Now that I am back it feels as though I have never been away.

I feel that I have settled back in well and I am pleased to be back even though a few friendly faces are missing.

I can definitely feel a difference between this year and last in terms of work. Last year we seemed to have longer to ease ourselves into the course but this year we have dug straight into our first project. It feels a bit like jumping in at the deep end. Having said that we have already been taught to swim…

The current project we are undertaking requires us to implement CSS in a design. I have been excited to learn CSS from the start of the course. Now that I am actually learning it I can’t believe how fast we seem to be progressing.

Over the summer I looked into CSS (as required) and I have to admit I found myself doubting my ability to finish the course. Now that I am having lectures on it I feel as though I understand it and that I am learning, I think were I asked to do the summer project again now I would have half as much trouble as I did have.

By way of teaching us CSS we have been having lectures in class which are usually followed with a practical exercise in which we are asked to use the information provided.

I feel this is a great way to learn as it can often be difficult to grasp something when information is provided verbally. When we are able to transfer this information to a practical session it provides a way to experiment and this can often help me to come up with questions that hadn’t previously occurred to me.

The project we are undertaking is to edit an html document using an external CSS document. We are to provide a style for the document using one of seven possible themes.

Pencil and Paper
Graffiti
Newspapers
Industrial
1950's
Black & White
Fruit

Immediately I was drawn to 1950’s as this initially conjured up the most visual responses in my mind but to acquire the best grade and achieve the best results I know that I have to explore all avenues thoroughly. Doing a few brainstorms provided me with some great responses to four of the categories but the ones I will be taking forward are the 1950’s and Black and White.

My main idea for 1950’s would be to do a design based on Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’ and my idea I will develop for Black and White will be a design based on Punk Rock.

I have shown my ideas to my peers and have feedback; the feedback received was that my ideas for the Black and White design were the strongest.

The implantation of CSS in a web page only forms part of the current task we must undertake; in addition we are required to write two essays about CSS.

The first essay was to write about the effect of software and hardware on the use of CSS. I have nearly completed this task now and it has made me see the benefits of using CSS and why it is so popular with companies who are seeking new employees.

Having almost completed this section of the project at such an early stage is a refreshing change for me, I have already put the written work into the template which for me is usually something that is at the bottom of the ‘to do’ list. I can now definitely see the benefit of getting this done sooner rather than later and although I have been nudged in this direction it will definitely be something I will ensure I do in the future.

Another benefit I have had from getting my written work completed at this stage is that I have been able to ask John to read through it. In doing this he has provided me with alteration to make which will benefit my written work, this isn’t something I have done in the past.


Now that I have got this done (with a few changes to make) I can look to correct a few mistakes I have made on my summer assignment. I realise that had I worked in a more structure way, as I am in this project, some of these errors would not have occurred.
Overall I feel that this semester is off to a good start, obviously the written work isn’t exactly excited but I can see the information is relevant. I am looking forward to designing my CSS page for the CSS Beauty ‘competition’, I do think it would have been exciting if the competition had been running and I would have like to have entered a design.