A Long Overdue Entry

I suppose most college students have one semester where things didn’t go as planned, in life or in school. For me, I hope mine was this last semester (Spring 2015) because then I have more productive things ahead. Even though it was a rough semester, and months in life in general, many lessons were learned including the “honeymoon period” in things. I wish I could remember which blog mentioned the book called The Dip by Seth Godin. I haven’t read the book yet, though this semester felt like that “dip” period. One thing I can be proud of is that even though my motivation wasn’t spot on and other things beyond my own, my instructor’s control, I still continued to give it 100% effort.

Now, the semester has ended and I graduated on May 13th, 2015 with an AAS in Web Development. Technically, my summer Ethics class will end that degree but that is also the hand off, or transition, point where my next milestone will be finishing an AAS in Computer Programming. This degree won’t finish for some time yet, so more on that later.

To give a very brief overview, as much is covered in a clickable (thanks to jQuery) Academics page on my newest portfolio at brianwardwell.com, this semester included five web development courses and one elective:

• Search Engine Optimization
• User Experience Design
• Web Applications II
• Web Portfolio
• Web Projects (Project Management)
• Professional and Technical Writing

Web Applications II had us working on technologies such as Git, UNIX commands, stepping into AJAX and JSON, node.js, SSH and virtual machines (Using Vagrant). I look forward to experimenting more with AJAX and JSON, as well as node.js, due to their increasing use among modern dynamic websites. Summer courses will include Ethics and Informatics. I’ve always been pretty interested in Philosophy, so I am looking forward to Ethics just as much as Informatics.

My final portfolio for Minnesota State Community and Technical College is actually the exact same that is on brianwardwell.com. However, in the next two months, I am hoping to build a solid foundation to a PHP based site, since there were problems with the schools server running PHP during the last semester. I’m hoping this will then allow me to include programming examples and other features.

More information to come….

-Brian Wardwell