Class Summary, Oct 18

Today we started with a short Moodle vs Blackboard discussion. Seems most people like Moodle better, for a variety of reasons. For some it gives more detailed information, for others the interface is easier to use.

All the speakers this week were fresh graduates who'd been in the business for a few years at most. Eric Tao says it was planned like this; last week was graduates that had been working in the industry for awhile, this week was fresh ones, and next week will be graduates that have been working for a long time and are in upper-level positions.

The first speaker was Christina Frannie, who did web design. She'd been in the business for awhile before CSUMB, and came here for color/design theory. Her capstone was the site for the Pacific Grove Police Department. She's currently a webmaster/system analyst, but I didn't catch what company she works for. She says that what you know today will not be good enough for tomorrow. She also says that she learns something new every day (I've heard this from a lot of graduates). She recommends we keep up with the industry trends so we continue to be valuable employees. One of the most important things when doing projects is to back up your ideas with examples. She did this quite well for her capstone. She researched a lot of other police department's websites before starting, and had examples for every aspect of the design she proposed.

The next speaker was Francine, a graphic designer. She works on campus in the Alumni & Visitor's Center. We probably won't see her much because she does in-house design for CSUMB. There's quite a difference between in-house design and out-of-house design, and she recommends the latter. She's assured of always having projects to do, but they're always things like "design this flier by 5pm" or "we need this redesigned for 2007 within 2 hours", never long projects. This means she's always doing different projects, and she can't put a lot of effort into any particular one to make it great. Because she's in-house, the school pays for her to work, and she's free to her clients. This makes them feel that her opinions aren't important; she'll say "[based on my years of design education,] I think it'd look better like this", and her clients will insist that she do it their way, even if it's uglier, or wouldn't appeal to the audience. One person's hatred of a particular color could mean that color isn't used, when that color may be the best color for that brochure. Francine can ignore her color preferences thanks to her years of design education, but she's still at the mercy of her clients because she does in-house design.

Margo was the third speaker, and I don't have very much information about her. She majored in art, with only a minor in CST (Computer Science & Technology, I think - the degree is named Telecommunications, multimedia, and applied computing now). She also works in a design firm. Since she's more of an artist than a computer person, she draws out her designs and then transfers them to a computer.

The conversation got around to learning new skills, and Eric pointed out that one great way to keep learning new skills and improve yourself is to keep taking college classes in various things, and most companies have ways set up for you to do this.

Each speaker was asked to give us some general advice. Christina said to talk to students about classes, and specifically don't take Discrete Mathematics and Computer Architecture at the same time - it's too much work. I don't know if that would be true for me; I'm taking Discrete Mathematics, and I find it pretty easy, but then I have a very mathematical mind. Margo said to take extra classes, that way you have more skills to put on a résumé, and you're more valuable to an employer. Francine said to participate in contests and investigate potential jobs before you have to.

Final piece of info from the class: A good mark of success is being able to present your idea to a stranger who doesn't know anything about the field.