Professional Work

My love of web design began in high school in the year of 1996. At that time, the internet was relatively new to the nation. At least to the general public. My high school was proud to offer a new computer lab, filled with new macs, pc's, printers and a few Mac's left over from old typing classes. You will remember these macs. They had small black and white monitors and small keyboards. This is what we considered a portable computer and the school would loan them out with special cases to carry them with. I remember taking one home on a few occasions to write papers and I set it up right on the bed. I still miss flying toasters to this day.

On our new Mac's we had a web page builder program. I don't remember it's name but it was probably the first or one of the first web page builders. I spent hours and hours of time building this page with art and song lyrics I like. Info on my favorite bands and much of my own poetry and art. I never finished it and it was never published, which is just as well, as looking back it had to be a mess. There weren't any computer classes for me to take at that time, except for one class on Basic coding and it wasn't compatible with my schedule. I had saved the page to disk, but never again saw that program and it wasn't compatible with anything else.

By the end of my Senior year that web design is what I wanted to do full time. I felt that it was a way to continue to create art while keeping a technical career with computers. In 1997 I decided that I wanted to Major in Computer Graphics (Technical Graphics at the time) at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana.

I moved to Lafayette at the end of May 1997. Purdue University was quite a culture shock to me. Not only could I not find my way around Lafayette, but I was introduced to an entirely different way of schooling.

Web design wasn't exactly the way I thought it was. At Purdue, I learned that a good web designer didn't rely on page builders and needed to know how to hard code. When I started Purdue HTML was the only language for the web. But Javascript had made an appearance by the time I left the University.

It is safe to say that I was inundated with information at Purdue my first years there. I didn't know the difference between a .gif and .jpeg, didn't know the first thing about HTML, I'd never even seen a scanner before! A lot of my professors threw us in the deep end and you sank or you swam. I swam, more or less, but I got some bad cramps out of it.

After a few years of intense learning, I unhappily left Purdue to concentrate on working and paying off some debt. I felt that I was never comfortable in my role at Purdue, and I certainly didn't feel that I was concentrating on what I wanted to do with my life there. Purdue CG had the opinion that a person in the graphics field should be 'whole minded'. Meaning neither left or right but both artistic and logical. I liked this idea, and took it with me when I left. I kept on thinking about my major and by the time I was ready to re-enter the educational system I had a whole new perspective on my goals.

I decided to continue my educational career at Ivy Technical College in Lafayette and changed my major to Computer Sciences. I realized then that I should have been in CS the whole time. But I learned valuable lessons from my time at Purdue. Even if I couldn't sketch as well as they would have liked me to. Meanwhile, at Ivy Tech a funny thing started to happen to me... I began to love coding. I have never been much of a mathematician or scientific type of person, as I mentioned before I lean towards the artistic side. But I found the challenge irresistable. It was an incredible rush to take a blank page into something beautiful and functional. Much like making a lump of clay into a beautiful vase.

I don't have a doubt in mind that going to Ivy Tech was the right choice. I enjoyed every minute that I went to class there. I have never seen such a wealth of teachers and classmates. I was impressed by the teachers who took time to really teach and really get the joy of education into you. I loved the small classes where your classmates became your friends. Best of all, I enjoyed always having a parking spot and not having to walk miles to each class! In all seriousness, I can't say enough good things about this small college. And while having a Purdue degree may carry more clout, I feel as though I have been made a better web developer by the teachers, staff and students of that school.

I graduated from Ivy Tech in 2008 with an Associate of Applied Science in Computer Information Systems with a specialty in Web Management. I feel as though I have stepped into a bigger classroom. I don't mind saying that I am increasingly more excited every day by my opportunities and the numerous things that I have learned and will learn about computers and technology. Every time I learn something new about my chosen career I feel that I am a better designer and I cannot wait to take that education and excitment to my new employer.

Please write to:jen@jenswebwork.com