This unit was all about preparing ourselves for when we left
college, either going into higher education, into employment or possibly an
internship. We had look into job vacancies, university courses, as well as the
process of applying for university if wanting to move into higher education
after this course.
The first thing I had to do research partially into jobs
applications and see what kind of skills were needed to get into specific jobs,
like a graphic design job would require a good understanding in creative
suites. I then identified areas for development and improvement for myself so I
could get an understanding of what I would need to do to get where I would want
to in life.
The next stage of this was to research and gather relevant career
occupations. I researched into 3 possible vacancies based around graphic design
which I found on the web. I found that most graphic design jobs were asking for
people with good knowledge in the main adobe software such as Adobe Photoshop,
Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Fireworks. Other job vacancies which were more based
on designing web site graphics were asking for a stern understanding in HTML
and or CSS. After this research I was getting a clear understanding of what
type of skills would need to be identified to get the job.
I then went on to researching into higher education courses.
I started by researching into the very local universities and then looked at
other possibilities which were further away. I had a look at the graphic design
based courses within all the universities which I have looked at and have found
that they are all fairly similar except the one at Plymouth University which
was more typography based. I decided to make this one my first choice when applying
as it’s more about the communication side of graphic design.
After this I had to create myself a personal statement to
use when applying for higher education. This took a fair amount of time as it
had to explain why I am applying for the courses I’m choosing, why I’m appropriate
for the courses, my current skills and experiences I have had along the way.
Once I had most of the university research and work out of
the way, I had to work on the career side of the unit. I went on to creating
myself a curriculum vitae, as I didn’t already have one which I could just
update, which I would use for future employment. This was in a way like the
personal statement, but more based upon me and not for particular courses. I
had to ‘sell myself’ in the CV and give a thorough list of experiences, skills,
qualifications, hobbies and a bit about myself. Then, as part of the unit, I created
a covering letter to go with the CV to show I have the knowledge when applying
for a job. It had to have no spelling errors, punctuation mistakes and
formatted correctly.
I finally started to finish off portfolio work which I had
been creating throughout the whole unit to present during the university
interview. I decided to have a hard back portfolio with print outs inside as well
as one online on my website as it would show off my skills a bit more. I did
all of this alongside research of other portfolios which I had found online.
