I think it’s about time I submitted something to this blog. Here are my reflections for the Fall 2015 semester! All comments appreciated 🙂

Project Management 

Out of the many projects that I take on for this Fall semester, the one that took lots of planning was the Bridges to the Baccalaureate Program website. This was a major project from a grant that gave opportunity to underrepresented students in the sciences to make transitions at a critical stage in there development as scientists. The program is a partnership between City Tech and Brooklyn College whereby students would complete their Associate Degree (LAS, LAA, or unclassified health) at City Tech and finish there Bachelor’s degree at Brooklyn College.

The project was lead by Profs. Liana Tsenova and Pa Her, who I have had to opportunity to know and work with a little before. I’ve also had the privilege to work with a previous Faculty Commons designer and good friend of mine, Jonathan Campoverde. This ism’t the first time we have collaborated on a project, so the work ethic and planning for the project was quite easy. We were both provided with a time table and certain checkpoints for website and print materials to be delivered. With careful planning by both myself and Jonathan, we were able to stay on track with the project. With constant communicated between everyone, it was very easy to manage and work.

One main thing I took away from this project is that communication plays a key role in anything you do in life. With clear and concise communication, anyone can be on track to successfully complete or do anything when working in a team.

Design Skills/Techniques

Since I try to learn and practice as much as can and learn from others, I’ve developed some pretty good skills at design even though it’s not my area of focus. Being surrounded by the talented individuals that I work with, you can help but try something new all the time.

One particular challenge I had was doing an invitation for the Hospitality Management Department. I had laid out everything I knew that my client, Prof. Dias, had wanted and started playing with the layout, colors, fonts, etc. I got to a pretty good point in the design until I seemed further assistance by a fellow Design team member, Mandy Mei. Mandy has a good eye for design and her help to finalize the invitation was vital because it made the design even better and easier on the eyes than before. I am always grateful for the help I receive by my fellow Design team members.

Since I spend a lot of time on the web always trying to find the next best thing, I’m always running into new and great softwares to aid myself or anyone on the Design team. I always share what I find and give good reasons as to why someone might want to use that particular program.

For instance, I’ve known about a great program called Sketch. It’s being used in the industry by top UI/UX designers. The simplicity of the program and easy learning curve makes it wonderful to use. I’ve since shared this everyone but Mandy has taken it and learned a majority of what the program can do and offers designers. She has used it to design the new web app currently being planned for the Liberal Arts Program at City Tech.

Work Relationships

I’ve been at Faculty Commons for a while now and have had the opportunity to work with several designers over the year. I have to say that the team is like a second family! It’s always a joy to be around each of them and converse on the various things we like whether it’s different or similar. We have a diverse group and that’s always great. You get to learn a lot from everyone and also get inspired. I am very open with everyone and always there to help in any way I can. I think that is a great way to build great working relationships! I am like this with everyone I work with whether it be clients, coworkers in the office, design team or even other offices in the college. Being able to communicate about the things that are needed to benefit the college and even personal things is a great way for my working relationships to grow. I’ve had to opportunity over the years to work with a lot of people in the college and I’m always very delighted to hear how I’ve helped them, even if it is with the simplest of things, as I know it might’ve been simple to me but difficult on their part.

It brings me joy knowing I could help someone in any way possible. That is why I push myself to learn more as you can never progress if you don’t try and fail and try again or try and succeed!