For my last blog post of the semester, I wanted to do a reflection about what I have learned while being a part of this Web Design II class. I am walking away from the semester with a lot more knowledge – though not necessarily in the ways that I expected.

This class has really pushed me and challenged me. At this moment, less than a week out from the end of the semester, I still have a lot of missing and outstanding assignments to catch up on – which is not like me and my general style as a student. I have spent many late nights and all-nighters on the classwork for this class. I have figuratively ripped my hair out over this class more than any other I have been enrolled in during my time at Columbia College.

However, despite all that, this class has taught me so much about myself. In various classes at Columbia, professors have discussed getting into the “flow” state – where you are working on your craft so intently and with so much passion that all of a sudden you look up and 2 hours have gone by without your noticing. That has never really happened for me – whether I have been working on art, music, or design – but as soon as I got into coding my rebrand project website, time was flying by like never before. The cause-and-effect, back-and-forth, saving-and-testing rhythm of coding really sparks joy in my brain the way other work has not. That is not to say that it is not also frustrating – like I said, figuratively ripping my hair out. But when things are working, or my brain has a clear path to figuring out how they work, I’ve really enjoyed learning how to markup sites using HTML and customize them visually with CSS.

I also forged a new connection with my dad through this class. My dad has worked in technology, consulting, and security for most of his career, and knows many advanced coding languages. He double majored in college in math and computer science. I have often seen him carting huge books around to learn new coding languages, and watched him study for various technology certification tests.

Prior to turning into the rebrand project, when I was still in the depths of coding, my dad came to town for the weekend and was able to help me out with my project. He was also able to observe me working on it, while he worked on his own stuff. Through this, we learned that we have similar tendencies of talking out loud to ourselves while in the flow state of coding. He was also reminded of my perfectionism issues, and how hard it is for me to accept something as good enough, and turn it in to fulfill a class requirement, when it does not look how I want it to. He introduced me to the concept of a “MVP,” a minimum viable product. Keeping this idea in mind, I was more willing to turn something in that shows how the site I have created works, but does not have to live up to the full expectations of the design I had created in my head. Learning through this process that I can always come back to a project (which I plan to do – I want to continue refining and coding my rebrand project site over the summer) has been really meaningful as well.

I hope this blog post illustrates that I am really grateful to have been in this class, even if it has been hard and stressful for me. I learned about myself, my interests, and the way my brain works – and am interested in exploring further a career path in web design, which I never would have considered without this class. I also got to connect with people important to me – my dad, my roommate Averie who was also a part of this class, and my professor and classmates. Thanks for reading!