I have always been aware of the pressure third years face through interacting with them. Throughout first and especially second year this awareness grew to a level where I knew I did not want to be in a position of constant fluster; however, able to enjoy my final year of study. Fortunately, I was able to observe how and why pressure grew to such an extent and importantly how to avoid it.
Learning from others around me I decided to use my summer to gain experience and start my initial ideas for our final project through the use of primary research. By starting so early this saved me so much time when our final project began and also meant I had a solid idea of the direction my project would go in meaning I could hit the ground running.
To continue to keep on top of things an important aspect was that I finished my dissertation before our final project stated which I am happy to say I did. By finishing this I allowed myself some weeks over the Christmas break to start my research for our final project, and also able to take advantage of being in London. It was making use of this free time which really helped me to keep ahead of things throughout our final project and meant I would not experience the same pressure that previous third years did.
Over the three years organisation and time management has gone from a weakness to a strength. Via completing SWOT analyses throughout my time, I realised these areas were something I really needed to focus on and improve if I was to succeed and improve my professionalism. By focusing on these areas, I have managed to change my entire work ethic and proved to myself that if I want something it can be as simple as putting the time and energy in.
Compared to the person I was when initially enrolling on this course I have a whole new work ethic and outlook on life. Although reflecting back I did go through an exceptionally hard time I am still glad I got to experience it as it has made me the person I am today. Without making mistakes throughout first and second year it would have been harder to justify choices now and meant I would have learnt a lot less in relation to my practice. Through going wrong and receiving critique from tutors and others I now know what is right and can speak confidently and professionally about my work.
Dealing with worry is something I have continued to strive for throughout my time at CSAD. Within university this took the form of getting organised and getting things done which also reflects my experiences outside of university. I remember a time where all I could think about was how I was going to be employable in such a competitive industry, no matter the grade I received at the end of the course. Learning from how I changed my attitude at university I turned this worry into action and managed to get four work placements throughout second year. By getting this experience this not only relaxed my worry toward future employment; however, also showed me what direction I wanted to go in after university meaning I could refine the ideas and skills I wanted to learn on the course in the direction of my career. Once again I was fortunately organised about this and managed to use my spare time in second year to complete these experiences meaning that when coming into third year I knew what I wanted to achieve and could save my spare time for completing and staying on top of university work.
Because of my hard work and preparation’s before and at the start of this project this meant I had time to do in depth research into my theme and also had a lot more time to experiment with creating my imagery. I knew watercolours would take a lot longer to complete and experiment with compared to my line drawings within the Design Group project as they require a high amount of detail and blending. Despite this, I really wanted to diversity the range of techniques and styles within my portfolio. Perhaps a mistake I did make was that I should have done my watercolours within my first project and saved the quicker graphic line drawings for my collection of 30 designs. Although this makes more sense when thinking about it, in reality I really enjoyed creating both my giftware and interior ranges in my chosen styles and mediums. Because I managed my time well I did not experience any issues.
Because of the Covod-19 outbreak the final months of my project are very different to how I had anticipated. I spent so long preparing and working for everything to be done on time if not ahead of schedule so when the news started to flow in about what is happening there was great speculation about what to do coming from all directions. I shortly worked out that the only way I could deal with the situation was to carry on like nothing was happening. I had worked so hard over the prior months and weeks to keep on top of things there was no way I was going to give up now. Reflecting back I am so glad I decided to carry on as although I ended up with fabrics and products I no longer need for our submission, I know even when everything was very unclear and life ended as we knew it I never gave up.




















































