Conclusions

I’ve been in Information Technology jobs as a programmer for over 20 years.  So collaboration and teamwork are not new to me.  The real value of this class has been that it forced us to put into practice so many of the skills we have been taught over the last three semesters.  Web design, graphic design, content creation, web site construction.  Most of the tools we’ve been learning to use were necessary components in the creation of these sites.  Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator.  (no Flash however).  Time management, client work proposals, public speaking.  All of these elements had to be drawn together if we were going to successfully give our clients what we had promised we would deliver.

This is not to say that the process was without challenges.  But those challenges are what made each of us stronger developers.  We confronted and then overcame the obstacles that fell in our paths.  And that has made each of us better prepared to deal with the trials that will inevitably confront us on a daily basis as we take these skills into the workplace and make a profession out of them. Kristy and I collaborated on our work almost daily and I learned the value of hashing out programming problems with other team members.

The Challenges

For me personally, the biggest challenge was working with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in building the web pages.  We have not quite reached a time when all Web browsers display pages exactly the same way.  When code that I had so diligently crafted worked beautifully in most web browsers, but refused to cooperate in one, I felt irritation, frustration and, in one case, embarrassment. (Internet Explorer drives me nuts!)  However, it was also a personal challenge to figure out how I was going to fix this.  I’ve gotten much better at using the Internet to seek out solutions to problems that invariably popped up and will bring.  I’ve had reinforced, once again, that problems confronted head on are problems that are solved.

I've gotten much more comfortable using PHP in web page construction. I will be using these skills and drawing on my own database development background to build more complex and interactive web sites in the future.

The Successes

To build a web site for a business client, from conception to completion was invaluable to me. That was the real challenge. I feel that it has prepared me to go out into the "real world" and take on web clients knowing that I am capable of seeing the project through to the end. I can work with other team members to bring out the best in each of us and collaboratively create sterling work. This has helped build confidence in my ability to do what I’ve just spent two years of my life studying to do.  There is still much to learn, but the Web Design program at NSCC and this Capstone course have put me firmly on the trail in the right direction.