I had the opportunity to actually attend an exhibition with my supervisor and some of her students to see wide range of the hardwares and softwares used by visually impaired students Web design is one of my core modules and during the professional practice I was able to develop a website with up to fifteen link pages for The Learning Services (B centre). I was glad to be given the opportunity to do that in a real working environment, it was a great opportunity to learn more about web development because it is one subject I really need in my course.
Business and E-commerce as a course has a lot to do with web development, website analysis, how to place information on the website and I was able to test my skills on all these areas during the task. My ability to gather information and analysis it in a systematic way was also put into test judging by some of the internet based research given to me by my supervisor (Caroline Goodwill) and her colleague (Sheila Hunter) during the professional practice.
I also had to produce a written summary about one of softwares I worked on Before the start of professional practice, one of my biggest concerns was my time management, considering the fact that I have to be at my work placement department everyday, Monday to Friday from 09am to about 16. 30 for ten weeks, this was not something I am used to, but looking back now I think I did not let my supervisor or myself down at the end of it all.
Until the start of the professional practice, I knew little or nothing about the structure of Bradford College as an organisation or inter-relationship between the different management functions, the hierarchy, especially the department I was placed but now I have an idea of the structure I was able to negotiate my Learning Agreement with my supervisor (Caroline Goodwill) something I got no clue how it is done before the professional practice
As somebody who is accustomed to doing things on my own ways before the professional practice, I have learned how to operate within business organizations through social communication and interactions, showing respect for other people or professionals within the workplace; it helped me to increase participation or assistance in obtaining information or completing tasks.
For instance, when I was writing my report, I needed some information from difference departments of the College, the Interpersonal skills I learned during the professional practice helped me to avoid interrupting someone who is currently preoccupied with a task in order to obtain information I needed for the report. I used other approach with language such as, “Excuse me, are you busy?
I have an urgent matter to discuss with you if you have the time at the moment. ” That enabled me to work with others harmoniously and efficiently. One other valuable lesson I learned during the professional practice is about data backup and restoration, something I have not taken seriously until now, half way into writing my report my file accidentally got corrupted, and I was able to restore it.
Since I started my course with the College, I have never written a report worth of six thousand words (6000) within this short period of time, but haven learnt about effective time management, gathering information in a systematic way, understanding and analysing information and effective interpersonal skills, I was able to complete the report on time. Considering the fact that I will be writing my dissertation next semester, there couldn’t be better ways of preparing for it than this report writing.