Development plan for the short term

Over the next 6 months of the course I hope to start to make progress at becoming a more rounded, more professional person. To do this I will be required to make changes to how I work outside of college, as this has been an area which I have struggled with so far on the course.
Firstly, I will want to get into a better working routine, as this will be an important skill to learn for the future.

This will include having more self discipline, so going to bed early and getting up earlier on a regular basis is something I will be implementing over the next few months. Secondly, I will continue to improve my time planning, and have already designed a new system of planning and recording my time over the summer. This includes colour coding the time which I am in college, doing self study, and also my free time so that I can create a better balance between all 3.

I will also be creating a checklist of the tasks needed to complete the assignments, so that I can constantly keep perspective on what has to be finished when. This will include building up my folder right form the start of the assignment, as I can feel more confidence from seeing the project take shape.

Finally I will be making more effort to find a larger range of sources when it comes to the written parts of the course. I have found that collecting more resources can actually make writing the essays easier, as I can take the best elements and focus on them to maximise my understanding of the various topics covered.

Over the next 6 months I want to be well on my way to reaching my goal of having 4 merits for this year. As I now have a greater understanding of the criteria required to do this, I can again focus my efforts on providing evidence to reach these important levels. After feedback from the A7 assignment last year, I feel that I should improve the depth at which I experiment when doing ideas generation for the assignments. To aid this, I will be using a Flickr account to upload photographs to. This will provide a place to collect images I could use in my projects, which will hopefully improve my inspiration. This will be used in conjunction with the more general improvements I will be implementing.

Over the medium term (3 years) I have 2 ideas in mind. In one instance, I could do a third year so that I can obtain a degree. This may prove to be better in the long term if I decide at a later stage in my career that I want to go into teaching. I find helping people to improve their skills is a very satisfying task, and something which I have done with various projects in the past.

Alternatively, I could finish the second year of the course and get a job as a web and print designer. I would ideally like to do both, as I find print exhilarating, and web design a satisfying challenge to master. Currently, I do not know which route I will take, as I will want to see how the second year of the course develops, and how my skills improve with the changes I am putting in place to help me work.