This is my first year at New York City College of Technology. I’m on the brink of finishing up my first semester in college. I’m majoring in Communication Design, with aspirations on becoming the best designer I can be. Growing up, I always saw myself as an artistic person, cause I literally viewed everything in an artistic way, I have a VERY creative mindset, and that’s what persuaded me to my decision to major in Communication Design.
I definitely learned a lot from my first semester here, both as a writer and a designer. Coming into college, I never knew design had so much more to it. I learned a lot but at the same time, I need to improve on a couple of things. “Design is so simple, that’s why it’s so complicated” – Paul Rand. Paul was an art director who is known for creating logos for companies like, IBM, UPS, etc…. I’m continuously trying to find ways I can better myself and become better at my craft which is designing. Early on in the semester, everything was a blur to me, I just didn’t really understand anything, it was my first time. But now, 4 months in, I understand Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop pretty well. When I say i’m a quick learner, I really am. My ability to grasp knowledge pretty fast, helped made my first semester an easy one.
I felt like doing the glossary entries also helped a lot, because doing that made me realize, there are so many ways to understand a word, you’re not familiar with. One word I will always remember from my this class is Juxtaposition, I never heard about that word until project 3 and ever since, I’ve realized that this word has a huge importance to a lot of things, learned about different types of writings, and different types of formats I can write in, read many articles/stories about other people’s journeys or their point of view on something. It made me more open to hearing what other people have to say on a particular subject.
Another thing that I would say improved since being in college, was my time management. I find ways for me to manage my study time, my project or homework time, and have restrained myself from doing everything last minute. In high school I was so unorganized, and everything was just fun and games for me. But when college came around, I had research papers, project after project, and tests to study for, all of which stressed me out. But I was able to keep calm and do my work. I feel like all that pressure I faced, and had to face for very little time, helped me manage my time better. I would definitely recommend the First Year Community to any first year students, it’s a great way to get your college career off to a great start. You’d be surprise as to how much things you learn in a 4 month span.
