Practicum
From March 2nd to April 9th I am on a non-paying practicum placement with a design company in Vancouver.
Cowie and Fox was kind enough to put up with me for 6 weeks. Thank you C&F!
Week 1
March 6th, 2009
This first week has flown by quite quickly. It's taken some getting used to working on webdesign projects as a group rather than an individual. I'm really impressed by the office, we are all on macs! Some of the new work flows I've started to get used to is using online programs to track my time on projects, using subversion and using tables for email newsletters. The office does Yoga on Wednesday and Friday afternons we sit down at close to have a beer or drink. It's quite a relaxing place.
Week 2
March 13th, 2009
Week one flew by and now it's already the end of week two. I've been working a lot on a Vancouver Yoga website and updating content. They have a lot of updates. Some of the biggest challenges have been figuring out the directory structure of the site. Everything is in PHP and I wish I had better PHP skills. But I know enough to not mess things up and I can jump in and edit quite easily. Some of the things I need to improve upone are double checking my coding. I've been making silly mistakes but I think they are more to due with being a bit overwhelmed. During the day I'm regularly working on a few differetn projects at a time which requires me to jump around a lot between sites, folders etc.
Week 3
March 20th, 2009
It's already the halfway point. My practicum coordinator came today and we sat down with the office manager. It went pretty well and a lot of the things I need to work on I'm well aware of. I had a bit of a hectic week, I'm slow at coding, mainly because I've never made a e-newsletter or used an online emaillist program such as campaign monitor. So there's been a bit of a learning curve there for me to catch up with. I've been doing updates on various sites, some really interesting clients.
Week 4
April 2nd, 2009
I've been working on updates for the Yoga Website. They seem to have a lot of changes. It is quite a large site but I'm the most comfortable with this project since I've worked on it since the start of my internship. I've also been working on a few other site updates but nothing too major.
Week 5
March 22nd, 2009
I've had quite a busy week. The design intern left today, I was sad to see him leave. We had a great time chatting when we weren't on a project since our desks are next to each other. Lunch time a few of us would either go to a nearby restaurant to get takeout or eat at the office lunch table. Workwise I've been busy designing a new email reply letter for a restaurant in town and creating another one for a woman's golf clothing line. C&F is currently redesigning their site. I've helped a bit with adding photos and content through the CMS. It's a big project that involves a lot of heavy programming. I've had a trying time with one client, none of my changes seem to be adequate and the site was quite a learning experience. I learned the value of the subversion program, especially when I found my outdated version overwrote a current version and messed up the navigation on the office server site.
Week 6
April 2nd, 2009
I'm done my practicum! The last week went by quickly. And the best news is, is that Cowie and Fox decided to keep me on part-time. They would love to have offered me full time but there just isn't enough work to go around yet for full time. I was told that probably I would go full time pretty quickly. So I'm employed despite the economic downturn!