In my last blog entry I explained all of my plans for how to spend my winter break. Now that it’s over, it’s probably time to explain what REALLY happened over the break and if I even worked on anything that I had originally planned to.
I did work on my vis dev work but not as much as I should have.
I didn’t touch my short film or Surviving Together.
I did work a lot on Zarbon’s Masterpiece Theater. We released two episodes and have recorded three more that are ready for animating. I will work on these slowly though the semester.
But mostly what I spent my time on was PaperDemon.com. I decided that it was time to build all of those nifty features that I’ve had in mind for PD and prepare to sell Premium Accounts. I still have some more work to do but Premium Memberships will be offered some time in mid to late February. I’ve spent a ton of time on it and I can’t wait to offer the Premium Memberships and see what people do with the cool new features. I don’t want to get into the details of the features because they are already explained on PD.
I have gone back and forth again on the idea of getting a BA degree but my decision currently is to get a BFA in Illustration. I don’t want the animation one because I really have no interest in learning 3D animation at this time and I’d have to take two 3D animation classes in order to get the BFA Animation degree. For the Illustration degree, all I have left to take is Conceptual Illustration (which I was able to do a late add of, thank God), the internship, one Art History class, and the BFA classes. I’ll be talking with my major advisor tomorrow. There might be the possibility that I’ll have to take one elective class but it shouldn’t be to bad. I also have three GE classes left to take, two of which I’m enrolled in this semester. So next semester, all I have to take is one GE, which will also satisfy my art history requirement, and the BFA class. So I’ll be a part time student my last year in college.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about what it is I want to do in life and what it is I enjoy doing. I spend an awful lot of time on my website and it makes sense to me that web design or web programming is where my future is. Even though I don’t have hardly any formal education or training in it, I have a lot of knowledge and experience on the subject. I really enjoy organizing information and designing an interface to display that information, which is exactly what the Paper Demon website is all about. People upload their artwork and writing and it is categorized and organized into sections. Then that information is displayed for the viewer. I don’t know why but I really enjoy doing it and for the past month I’ve been working at least 40 hours a week developing new features for PD. I often work late in the night until I can hardly think strait or keep my eyes open. And then I just collapse on my bed and sleep. So that’s what I want to do.
My Mom suggested that I look around and see if I can find any certificate programs at any of the local community colleges so I took her advice and looked at the four schools around here. One of them has about three certificate programs in web programming that I’m really interested in and I have decided that I will enroll in the program in Fall and I’ll hopefully have my certificate by the time I graduate from San Jose State. This also influenced my decision to go for the BFA rather than the BA. If I go for the BFA, my last year will be part time, meaning that I’ll have time to go to this other college and focus on gaining new skills in web development. I actually wish I could start it this upcoming quarter of Spring. I may still be able to if I just take the easy classes. The hard thing is that I’ll be going to two different schools at once but I think it will be worth it. I really want to learn .NET, JavaScript, and Perl and these courses will teach me those languages.
Now I just need to find an internship for the summer. I need an internship to graduate and I also need to get some income to pay for school. I also could use the experience. I talked to my advisor and I can actually get an internship in Web design or programming instead of something more like illustrating or whatever. So that’s what I’m looking for. I’m hoping to get something that will be more than an internship and more like an actual job that I can keep. However, if I get the job strait out of the internship this summer, I wont be able to do the web programming certificate program. Maybe if I get a great internship and they want to keep me, perhaps they’ll be willing to let me finish school first and then come back to work full time once I have my degree and certificate.
My Mom sent me a link to an article on Monster.com recently that was really encouraging:
http://technology.monster.com/articles/webdesigner/
It says in there that your ticket to getting into the field is to build something. Haha! I have PaperDemon.com as well as a few other websites. PD is probably my biggest accomplishment. It’s encouraging to know that the hardest step is already done! I do think I need to spend some time improving the user interface of PD though. I know that some of it is a little plain and confusing so I’ll need to get a book on UI design principles and look at other websites for ideas.
I’m thinking of just putting a big sign on the front page of PD that says “HIRE ME.” Anyone looking for a web designer?
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