New Media Design & Web Development [Term 1 Review]

I am currently enrolled in the April 2012 intake of New Media Design & Web Development program at the BCIT burnaby campus.  Laptops are required if you are taking the program at the burnaby campus in april.

My name's David and I am currently 18.  I first found out about this program about 4 months before I graduated high school.  At first I was still unsure if this was the right program for me, but I have interests in graphic designing and website developing so I gave it a shot.

I will listing in-depth information for each course and provide my view on them.

Difficulty level -      - easy ,          - medium ,               - difficult 

Adobe Acrobat      
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia1026

This is one of those class that's simple and straight forward.  What you get out of it is the general knowledge on how to use adobe acrobat, learning about .pdf in general.  For us, there were quite a few hotkeys to learn, but that may just be because of our instructor.  Nothing negative to say about this course, though I can't picture myself using Acrobat in the future.

There are some assignment, quizes , and final for this course, as long as you attend class it should be no problem.

Intro to Mac      
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia1434

I forgot to mention that this program uses Mac operating system instead of PC.  This is a great little short course that teaches students that are new to Macs how to use them.  It's the basics of the basics, experienced Mac users shouldn't expect anything out of this, it is a 0.5 credit course.  As a first time Mac user, I found this class helpful, but not necessary.  

Graphics and Color for The Web      
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia1194

In this course you will start learning about the web, and how graphics and color interact with users visiting the website.  If you are interested in the web portion of the program, do pay attention to this course as it explains a lot about usability of a website.  Interesting course in general, there are a lot of neat things you will learn that you never realized.  
Work wise there are assignments, quizes, and final.  However it's nothing much as long as you pay attention in class.

Overview of Web Technology     
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia1190

Like every other course for term 1, this course provides a introduction to HTML and CSS.  You will learn how to create your own website from scratch.  This is definitely one of those easier classes in term 1, however what you get out of it is pretty cool.  This is one of my favourite course in term 1 because of the pace and how easy it was to follow along.

In terms of work, there was barely any, can vary from instructors.

*This is a good time to purchase a year of web hosting, with this course, you will know how to get your website up and running (web hosting required for other terms).

Instructional and Information Design          
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia2533

This course teaches you about informational architecture, in other words how you should handle information on a site.  Info design is a pretty hefty course, there is a lot to learn from this course and there is an continuation of this course in term 2.  It is suggested to pay good attention to this course if you intend to run a website of your own.  As I mentioned above, this course is pretty hefty, I was a bit surprised at the course materials to learn, however I did like the content.

This is also one of the only course in term 1 that requires you to work in partner/groups, better get used to that now if you aren't already.

In terms of work this course had the most in term 1, nothing unbearable as long as you spend a little time doing them.

Communication for New Media           
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia1510

Remember how to write paragraphs and essays you did in high school? , if not you better be prepared.
Communication for New Media is a course focused on how you should write for the web.  Some of the material here overlaps Graphics and Color for the Web, even better.  Also one of the course with heavier materials than the others.  Personally I liked this course a lot because of learning the psychology part of how a user reads on the web was interesting 

There were only a couple of assignments for this course so do put forth some effort.

Scanning and Color Correction      
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia1111

It may have been some issue with our instructor, however this course teaches the bare minimum of color correction using Photoshop.  Aside from that we learned how to use a scanner, exciting isn't it?.
In my opinion this course is very underwhelming.

We had barely any assignments , I believe this is also because of the instructor.

*Aside from how to use a scanner, you will learn everything in this course from Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop      
course detail: http://www.bcit.ca/study/outlines/mdia2185

Here's introduction to Photoshop, the course teaches the basics of Photoshop and works the way up from there.  You will be learning how each of the tool work and how to use them.  I, as somebody who already knew Photoshop still enjoyed this course and learned quite a few new things.

Work wise there will be some assignments, nothing major.


Instructors

I'd say majority of the instructors are awesome and really helpful.  Sometimes contacting instructors by email may be difficult as they can be busy and won't have time to check their emails.  So it's preferable to get help from the instructors during class, and not later.

I still feel underwhelmed by what we learned in Scanning and Color Correction, it felt like a really forced course and not a lot of time has been thought into it.


Overall impression of term 1

It's a great start out of the 4 terms.  I learned a lot graphic and web information and majority of these courses are further expanded in term 2.  As this program teaches graphics, web development, and other media; it is exactly as I thought it would be.  For term 1, it is a lot more web based than graphics, which is no problem in my opinion.  Personally I didn't encounter any problems with term 1, but don't let your guard down; term 1 is the easiest of the terms.

Extra Note

If you are going to attend laptop intake, do be prepared to backup all your files as you will need to wipe everything on your laptop

Portable or external harddrive will be required in the future, so it would be a good idea to get one before the program starts.  (1TB+ suggested)