If the first stage can be called a study, the second stage is more like a job, because it takes time equal to the real projects. I had to sacrifice something, I didn’t like it. No lectures, no tests. The grading system changed — we got points individually, not for the fact of submitting on time. Also, there were supposed to be teacher reviews, but my idea of reviews is different from the bureau one, I would call them small comments.

Read also about first grade.

About reviewing papers

The pattern was as follows:

• week one — got the first assignment, and turned in a rough draft by the end of the week;
• second week — got the second assignment, handed in the second draft by the end of the week and handed in the first week’s assignment. That is, there were two parallel tasks for a week.

If you break the deadline — minus two points out of five per iteration, and for the next failure you are excluded.

To get a review of the work, you have to have time to sketch something in the first two days of the week and send it to the teacher, and ... either get a response or not. If you wait until Wednesday or Thursday, you probably won’t get a response.

Week 1. Teacher: Mikhail Nozik.

We put together the “About Me” page. We didn’t need to come up with anything super-cool. The main thing is to stick to all layout principles.

Week 2. Teacher: Ilya Sinelnikov

We negotiated with the client and wrote an understanding of the task. Perhaps this was the most interesting task. In the first week, we made a list of questions for the client, Ilya was in the role. He held a video broadcast with us: we asked questions in a general chat, and Ilya answered them enthusiastically.

In the second week, we wrote a letter to the client with an understanding of the task.

Week 3. Teacher: Maxim Ilyakhov

We wrote informational text for the website and made a page with it. This was the most nervous task for me, especially in the first week. At the same time, there was a work jam, so I left the first iteration of the task for the end of the week, and it was a big mistake.

Never leave anything for the last days.

Maxim offered two topics to choose from — coffee and personal trainer. Interestingly, most of the students chose the first option — coffee with Malysheva, they found it simpler. The rest, and I with them, preferred to talk about a personal trainer. I’ll give you a hint: it was much harder to write about coffee.

All Thursday I wrote the text — this is the most difficult part for me. I left the layout for Friday. Well, on Friday there was a force majeure — in the middle of the day there was a storm and the electricity was cut off in the whole neighbourhood. The work was half done and I couldn’t continue. After a few hours, I had already given up hope that the electricity would come back on and resigned myself to losing the grades.

But the lights came back on an hour before the deadline, and I had a couple of hours’ worth of work to do. I sketched the whole layout and uploaded it two minutes before the deadline. I am very emotional, so there were a lot of nerves and tears lost :-) I wasn’t satisfied with the work — I didn’t have time to make the layout properly, nor to go over the text again.

As I expected, I got one of the lowest scores. But Maxim recorded a video dissection of my work and pointed out the main mistakes. Then I decided to completely rewrite the text and make the layout again. This is what I got:

According to the results, I got almost maximum points for this work, and it and two other works were singled out by Maxim.

Week 4. Teacher: Nikolay Toverovsky

A complex document — a Beeline contract. The contract is just huge, it is suicidal to layout it in graphic programmes. Ideally — html and css. It’s enough just to make a neat layout.

Week 5. Dropped out

In the second week, a new assignment was to be opened — Birman’s valenki and I dropped out. Several factors influenced the decision — a heavy workload that I couldn’t afford, further assignments I didn’t think were productive for me with the feedback we were getting from faculty, plus personal reasons.

I was in the middle of the ranking table at the time of admission and dismissal.

A couple of positive facts for dropouts:

1. If you drop out during the first half of your studies, the School refunds half of the amount paid.
2. If you wish, you can re-enter the second stage with any of the following streams, from the beginning of the stage, on a paid place, with the old starting points at the end of the first stage.

Conclusion

For myself, I decided that the first stage — a treasure trove of structured knowledge, is worth going for. The second — is necessary for designers-beginners who have not yet worked and have not collected a starting portfolio.

That’s it!