Personal & Professional Development

I have thoroughly enjoyed producing my individual major project, and although I found some aspects difficult, I am fairly pleased with the overall outcome of my work.

                  During the first few weeks of term, my motivation to start my work was quite low. Getting started on assignments is always the most difficult part for me because I often feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin. I spoke with Edwin and he advised that I break the assignment down into smaller tasks and tackle it that way, rather than trying to write the report from start to finish in one go. Once I had completed a few tasks, I started to understand how and where they would fit into the business plan.

                  In terms of my lifestyle film, I tried filming some of my own footage as well as taking some still images, but I was really unhappy with the outcome. Instead I decided to use some existing footage from the Internet and blend the footage together on iMovie to make my own film. I have never used iMovie before this assignment, or tried to produce my own film. I found it challenging yet enjoyable. I do feel we would have benefitted from using iMovie more throughout the course, as it is a useful skill to have, as well as photo shop.

                  I enjoyed the creativity aspects of designing my own marketing plan. I focussed heavily on social media and direct marketing within my plan and as a social media addict myself I really enjoyed this! The target market for my range of prom dresses is 16-25 year old, and as I fit into this category myself, I found I could really engage with my business plan and put my personal opinions, likes and dislikes into it. I also enjoyed making the questionnaire, as it is always interesting to see other people’s points of view. I collected 50 responses from my questionnaire because I wanted it to give an accurate representation of the target market. To collect my responses I shared the questionnaire on facebook and asked my friends and family to share it as well. I was clear in stating that I only wanted responses from young women ages 16-25 and their responses really helped to develop my business plan.

                  My biggest issue with assignments is always time keeping, because I tend to procrastinate and put things off. Although my time keeping this time around was a little better (I didn’t have to stay up all night to get my assignment finished!) in the future I will try to improve this further by setting myself weekly tasks and ensuring I complete them. I found the week-by-week plan in the unit handbook useful to follow because it listed the tasks that should be competed each week. This helped me a lot and meant I didn’t feel so overwhelmed.

                  Overall, I think this unit is well planned and taught by the lecturers. I enjoyed having different lecturers teaching different parts of the course and I found having a personal tutor really useful. I also liked the group tutorials because it meant we could share ideas.