Saying Good Bye to my College Experience

A Look Back

Today I gave my final presentation closing out my college experience, although it is a blessed feeling of accomplishment of which I’m most proud, I also will greatly miss my grueling class schedule. The realization of it’s all over hit hard on my hour long drive home, no more worrying about the next big project or I’m just not getting this 3D modeling program called Blender or I have a huge database exam that I’m totally not prepared for. I do however have one last assignment before I walk the stage and receive my degree and that is to write a blog about anything I choose, so I’ll write my blog about my AB Tech experience and those that have inspired my during my stay there.

Honduras

Two and half years ago I was working a control systems manager for Anvil Knitwear Inc in Honduras when I decided to hang it up and come back home to my family. I knew I wanted to go back to school and had my mind made up to take Business Administration, it was only the logical choice since my entire career was somehow involved in managerial work. I went to AB Tech and took all my placement exams and got up to the desk to sign up for classes and at the last minute changed my mind to major in Digital Media. It sounded like a fun course that would be fun and exciting and since I loved photography it should be a snap.

College Begins

I began off course by starting in the spring so right off the bat my schedule was out of whack, I did the right thing by taking all the things I hated first, Math, English, public specking and things like that. I really enjoyed those first few semesters and it felt good to be back in school and not have all the responsibility of the work load of the last few years I endured in my job starting up new plants or consolidated old ones. The joy soon changed when I started getting into the move advanced classes of Digital Media, the first eye opener was Computer Art II. This class was the first class where we dived real deep into design and topography and the instructor was not the nicest person in the world, I actually seen a few tears on people during the tough critics in that class, but I did survive it making my first B.


Digital Media is a program that focuses on being able to design things like websites and other GUI’s that are not only beautiful but work in a logical and semantic way. You would think this would be an easy thing to do, but a lot of thought must go into what a user will do and think when using your interface. If you don’t make it extremely clear and easy for them to follow you’re in trouble and they will lose interest and move on to another site. The course work of involves things like

• Web design
• Databases
• 3D Modeling
• Animations and Action Script Programming in Flash
• Illustrations and Print
• Branding and Identity for businesses

Digital Media covers a broad spectrum and the program is extremely fast pasted, I found that the farther I got into it the more time it was taking to complete assignments and that I basically lived in front of my computer. I began to think if I had made the right choice by choosing this track and a lot of the people that I was taking class with began to fall out of the program. A few determined souls remained and we became close friends, helping one another and taking guidance from each other’s strong points and somehow we made it to the end of each semester together with passing grades.

In the fall of 2009 I had to take 5 courses that were all very demanding and it really was a test to my determination, taking courses that were considered to be most important in my curriculum such as User Interface Design and the more advanced web classes. I also took a programming class in mySql and a class called Digital Animation II, where the focus was on 3D Modeling and Animation using a program called Blender. I must say that the entire semester was nothing but my face in front of a computer screen and no time to do anything else, go to school put my face in front of a computer and then go home and do the same thing. It was hard and I wasn’t having any fun and considered going back to work. I stuck with it and before I knew it was over and I was registering for my last semester. Thank god!


With only 4 classes to go and one being Systems Project the end seemed close and I would finally be able to right all the wrongs from High School. The same group of student that managed to stick out the grueling demands of Digital Media were all in the same boat as me and we each had to completely brand a company and design logos, print ads, business cards and even do a complete website for them. It was defiantly the culmination to apply everything that we had learned from the last two and half year of mind breaking studying. I began this program with very little graphic design skills and over the course of the program I did manage to learn a lot in this area, although I’m still not the best designer, I have come a long way. Our instructors Jonathon Ross and Constance Humphries kept pushing us, wanting that little more from all of us, but with their guidance we all managed to push out a piece in the end that we all were extremely proud of.

Graduation

As I look back at my college experience at AB Tech I’m extremely proud that I chose Digital Media, It was a very hard course to complete and not many make it to the end, but those of us that did have learned a great deal. I have an enormous amount of respect for all my instructors who often put up with my repeated questions. AB Tech is a wonderful institution of higher learning and I don’t think I could have went anywhere else and learned as much as I did there. Although I’ll walk across the stage next Friday with my peers where we will receive our degrees with much happiness and satisfaction, I will greatly miss the program and all those wonderful people who taught us how to do it all. Thanks to all my instructors, but most of all to Jonathan Ross, Constance Humphries and Marlene Anderson-Roden, you’re the best.