Culminating Blog Reflection

Culminating Blog Reflection

          Throughout the project, I had used critical thinking as a tool to be able to work professionally and proficiently. I used all the information I know and applied it in the most effective way possible to the project that me and my mentor had worked on, which happened to be a website. I practiced the basics of the softwares that we had to use such as Adobe Photoshop, and Dreamweaver even before we started the project. Eventhough my mentor was my sister's acquaintance, I thought that it would be hard for me to set meeting and appointments with him since he's a family guy. But no, he was actually pretty cool, which allowed me to communicate easily with him. I was pretty comfortable with my mentor. In fact, whenever I got questions to ask him regarding what and how to use something, he would always be there and exchanging ideas with me. During the project, I would give the first thoughts and he would add ideas or, if my idea was bad, change it, then ask my opinion about it. I thought that it was nice to work on something hands-on. Unlike the other things that we do in school, working with a mentor is such a wonderful experience because you get to express yourself. I was able to use my creativity most of the time if not always as we decorated and designed the website that we worked on. It was really a good feeling seeing how your own work looks like and how beautiful it is for something that was done by an amateur. 

          I have learned a lot of things personally, socially, and intellectually throughout the whole process of the Capstone Project. I'd say that I have become more confident with myself  and with my abilities. At first, I was actually not paying attention and giving interest to the project. But then, as I started doing it and surprisingly enjoying it, I realized that it's the real deal. It made me love the job that I want to do in the future even more. I saw how much effort my mentor puts on the project and it made me feel embarassed because I wasn't being so cooperative. He opened my eyes that in the real world, you can't procrastinate. I've learned how to be more responsible with the tasks that are given to me. Not only as I work by myself, but also with a team or a partner. He told me that in the industry that I'm going to go into most of the time I would be working with someone if not a team. He taught me that in order for a team to be productive, we all have to talk and throw ideas, we have to socialize and give our thoughts and opinions about things. I remember how my mentor would tell me "It's not just about the doing, it's also about the talking". It was a good experience because it molded me to become more mature and I learned how to take others' comments and opinions in a good way that I could benefit from it. I've learned that getting upset would only make frustrations worse. I've improved my ability to make judgements on any negative and positive circumstances that I might encounter everyday and use it to develop my skills as I enter the working world. All in all, I'm now more ready to challenge myself to go out of my comfort zone and challenge myself to go beyond my capabilities.

          In everything, it's almost impossible to not encounter any problem. As I was doing the Capstone Project, I had encountered a lot of trials and difficulties, which, as I said in the previous paragraph, I was able to take positively. One of the biggest problem that I experienced was my self procrastinating and being so lazy. It really taught me a lot of things. Eventhough I was procrastinating, believe it or not, I was also worried about it because I knew that it might cause my mentor losing interest in helping me out. I had to think deeply and ask my self questions on how I'm going to fulfill and reach my dreams if I can't even do this project. That really poked me and push me to start meeting with my mentor. Although at some point I still procrastinated, yet I was able to at least lessen that habit. Another problem was my transportation to meet my mentor. It was not that hard to resolve it but it held our schedules back. We could've gotten the project done if this did not become an issue. Anyways, what I did was I would ask my mom when she's free to drive me to my mentor's house. There are also times when my mentor would pick me up and drive me back home. As an amateur, I also struggled using all the softwares that we had to use to make the website. I didn't have any background to it except the study I did before actually starting on the project. It helped me a lot but some of the tools that the softwares have to offer were pretty complicated to use. Frustrations were everywhere everytime I encounter something that I can't resolve. At first, I was shy to ask. But as what my mentor had told me, "it's also about the talking". I always hated asking too many questions then I realized that if I wouldn't, who would? I'll say that those problems that a trainee might encounter are just like military bootcamp obstacles that they would have to go through in order to develop their skills and become the general they want to be.

The Final Job

The Final Job May 6, 2014

Last tuesday was the last day of me working with my mentor. I was sad about the fact that we cant really finish the project as how we planned to do it. Anyways, we started off by planning what we are going to put in the banner. There were different factors that we had to consider. One was the name, which happens to be "Marcello Kingpin Line". Other factors were the background color, the picture that we're going to put in it, and of course the layout. It is important to have a sketch first or just an idea of how it's going to look like. Ours happened to be a picture of "Marcello" and it's sick-looking puppies beside it. We sliced the actual puppies out of the original pictures. But prior to that, we had to have some background. Since, unfortunately, we didn't have that much time, we just decided to get a dark background image off the internet and enhanced it a little bit by adding effects to it. It was pretty cool that you can costumize it however you want it to be. But of course you have to have the knowledge on doing it. It was actually easier than I thought. My mentor said that it is easier to operate the new photoshops from today than the ones from back then. Yet, the new ones have more effects and functions that you can use to make a simple picture look better. So, after putting a layer for the background, we put the "sliced puppies", what me and my mentor called it, into the picture. But of course, of a different layer. Layers are important so you could re-edit a part of the picture if any changes occur. I thought doing photoshop is pretty interesting cause you can really put yourself into it by expressing yourself and being creative. Anyways, then, we put some effects into it such as shadowing and all that sort of stuff. The shadow around the puppies and Marcello makes them stand out. Even if it was not finished, yet, I actually found it pretty sick. I thought it looked so cool. And the fact that I made it made it even more exciting and fulfilling. Then after that, we chose a font for the text, which will be the name of the store. We used some cursive looking font and decided to arc it a little bit to match the shape of the dogs below them. We, again, added some effects to it to make it emboss. We finished it off by adding shadows around the text and making the background fade a little bit. I thought it looked pretty decent for a work done by an amateur like me. But, at the same time, I felt sad because it was the last day that we are going to work together for the capstone project. But the good thing is, we are still going to work even if it is outside the project. We didn't get to actually using Adobe Dreamweaver but he kind of introduced it to me and taught me where to find which, but he said that I have a lot more complex things to learn to be able to make a website. I'm looking forward into learning all of those because I know I can use them in the future. And thus, we ended that session by him signing off on my mentor evaluation. It's been a great experience working with a professional like him.

Time logged for this session: 4 hrs

Total time logged: 26 hrs

Fourth Job

Fourth Job April 20, 2014

This is my fourth meeting with my mentor. It has been a while since the last time we worked. This sunday, we started off picking and sorting the pictures. It was pretty basic so my mentor let me do all the job for that day. He only helped me with renaming the pictures. We created folders and labeled them according to what page they are for. I put them all in one main folder which we named "assets". We chose the pictures and put them in their appropriate folders. We renamed all the pictures with the puppies' names. I didn't know that we had to rename all the pictures. But my mentor told me that by changing its names, the names of the pictures will show as you point the cursor on the pictures on the website. Anyway, it started to become frustrating because I mixed up all the names. I missed one name, so I had to go back to where I messed up and redo everything from there. It took me a little long because there were a lot of pictures. My mentor suggested me to stop every once in a while because he said that looking at the screen for too long can damage your eyes. He told me to look at something far every 30 minutes. After all the frustrations, it was worth it. My mentor's wife made us some frozen chocolate shake and sandwiches. The shake was so refreshing and relieving. In our next meeting, we are planning to make our own banner. We decided to download all the backgrounds and pictures that we can use to make a banner for our business site. He said that in our next meeting, he is going to teach me how to use Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to make our banner. I wasn't expecting that we are going to edit some pictures, but he said that it's a part of being a web designer. It wasn't what he majored in, though. He said that he was also taught some of it put just the basics. I really want to learn how to do photoshop! I'm starting to imagine how I'm going to be like when I actually work as an IT. We didn't talk about when we are going to do the banner since his availability is not predictable because the company that he works for calls him whenever they need him. But since it's my spring break, he said he's going to try to work longer with me because he might leave for North Carolina for his job there. And it made me feel a little sad because he said that we might not be able to finish the website by the time of the presentation comes. I really hope that we get this done. But I think that we will still work on this after he comes back from North Carolina.

Time logged for this session: 6 hrs

Total time logged: 22 hrs

Third Meeting

Third Meeting, Third Job April 12, 2014

Last saturday, I met with my mentor at 2pm in the afternoon to pick up the pictures that we are going to put onto the website. He was nice to pick me up, too. On our way to the place where we were to pic the photos up, me and my mentor were talking about how we're going to pick the pictures. And since we are going to make an online store, we are going to put the parent of the line. The parent of the line is the breeder of the dogs that we are going to be selling on the website. The nice shots from the dog shows that the breeder has been are the one that are going to be on the main page and gallery. I could already picture in my head how we are going to lay it out, though. Then, we are going to seperate the photos of the dogs based on age and gender. Since the pictures, he said, are updated, there shouldn't be any problem with labeling them and the owner is going to give us the list of the puppies' age and gender. Later on, we got to a restaurant called Pampanga's Cuisine, which is a popular filipino restaurant in the Bay Area. I was thinking that he was just going to buy something from there. But, the owner of that restaurant is the one that we are going to make the website for. He's a close friend of my mentor. I really love that restaurant because their food is so good. Anyway, my mentor had a hard drive with him where he put all the pictures. He said that by putting the pictures in the hard drive instead of sending it through the cloud keeps the photos' resolution high. And he also wanted to introduce me to him. It's been fun working with my mentor because he doesn't treat me as a student or someone he's doing a favor for. And plus, I meet people like the owner of that filipino restaurant. It took us a while because we picked some pictures and some of them crashed. Since the pictures are in high resolution, it sort of took a little while to be transferred. It took us an hour to pick the pictures and another to transfer them because it crashed half way through it. I also learned that some harddrives, when paired with a fast computer, transfer files faster than the regular ones. We got like 350 pictures. And before we left, the owner let us eat in the restaurant for free, which was my best part! Haha! Then, we went to my mentor's house to sort all the pictures and put them in different specific folders. It was kind of hard because we cant just look at the pictures to know which is which because most of them look almost the same. We actually had to read the titles of the pictures. But it became easier towards the end since you can arrange the files in alphabetical order. I really loved that job because first, I got to meet the restaurant's owner, and second, the dogs look so cool. And what I'm really excited about is that the owner said that he'll take me and my mentor to his house to show his dogs. I bet that would be so fun! Anyway, after all that work, the day is about to end for us. At around 8pm, me and my mentor headed to my house where we watched the Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley fight. We also talked about our next meeting. He said that we are going to decide which picture goes to where. We are going to rename the pictures according to what they are for. We decided to do it the next day which was on sunday. Seeing all the pictures that are going to be on the website, and how cool they are, gets me more excited!

Time logged for this session: 5 hrs

Total time logged: 16 hrs

The Second Day, The Second Job

The 2nd Job March 26, 2014

Thursday was the second time working my my mentor. It's been a while since the last time I worked with him because he was out of the state with his family. Today, we are to work on a mock up site, which is basically a design of the actual website. I'm kind of excited because I actually looked at some websites to get some ideas. But before we did it, we went through some of the websites my mentor found interesting and cool. I though they were cool, too. He showed me some websites that has a gallery where they have the pictures of the animals which they are selling. Some of them actually have videos of pitbulls. But one that caught my attention was the one that has a homepage with a mean looking pitbull and a background music. It was so sick! Anyway, me and my mentor took some ideas from those websites. We started off sketching it on a paper. Then, we actually made a design on a computer. We used a software that my mentor already had. At first, it was hard but eventually I got how the software works. My mentor said he liked it. Though, I kind of didn't like how it turned out. Probably because it was my first time. It was actually frustrating after spending time on it and not liking it afterwards. Yet, my mentor helped me enhance it. He taught me things like where to put this and that. And I think it turned out pretty good. After all the frustrations, we took a break and ate some pasta cooked by his wife. It was irresistable! The strawberry juice somewhat refreshed my mind. Then we finalized the mock up site. Finally, after about 8 different designs, we had our mock up site done. I'm actually happy about how it turned out. I can't wait until this project is done. I just wish that we get the website done before the presentation so I could show it. Next up, we are going to get some pictures from my mentor's friend. And we are going to pick which to put for which. We are targeting to do it on friday or saturday depending on my mentor's availability. I just can't wait to see it!

Time logged for this session: 5 hrs
Total time loggied: 11 hrs

First Day Working with My Mentor

The First Day I Worked with My Mentor March 9, 2014

Last sunday, I actually started working with my mentor. I was kind of nervous but the fact that my mentor is my sister's friend somewhat took my nerves away. Although it was not the first time I met with him, I still found it hard to get along with him during the work. I even thought that he might get disappointed with me because I had no idea what I was going to do. But he was nice to consider that I was a beginner. So next time, I'm going to try to be more confident. Anyways, before we started working on the project, we talked about how we are going to meet and where. We didn't get clear enough about it but I don't think that it's going to be a problem since he's not being hard to meet with. We have decided to do a website on dogs. When he told me that it was going to be about dogs, the first thing that came into my mind was cute little puppies. (Although I'm kind of scared of dogs). He showed me some samples and ideas on how our website is going to look like. I found it interesting since we're doing it specifically on Pitbulls. I thought they're cool in pictures, but not in person. Good thing I only have to see them in pictures! Then, he gave me a brief explanation of how we are going to do it step-by-step. Honestly, I thought it was going to be hard, but he said he's going to be helping me most of the time so I wouldn't have to worry about it, which made me feel more confident. Then, lastly, we made a web design project plan, a chart where we put the target dates. I feel so pressured yet excited since this is really the job that I want to have in the future. In my next meeting with my mentor, I am to make a mock-up site for my website.

Time logged for this session: 6hrs

Total time logged: 6hrs