Author: Abrianna

I am so relieved I got through my first year of college without any major problems. I am so ready for summer vacation and to have a long-deserved break from school. One thing I am most excited for is to be able to catch up with so many people I couldn’t during the school year. I missed all of my family and friends back home and hope we can hang out lot over this break.

There is so much I want to do during this little time frame. I hope I can do most if not all of it. I have never been a warm-weather type of person. I prefer colder weather where you can bundle up and wear boots. But summertime is always a good time no matter the weather. Theirs just something about summertime activities that you can’t do in any other season. For example you can swim in other season, an inside pool or outside pool. But for some reason swimming during the summer time is just automatically way better.

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My plan for the summer is to go back home and work a summer job and earn money for the next school year. I know what to expect in my second year and I’m going to be much more prepared! I am getting to know a better spending habit, with lots of trial and error. And I know what I can do to improve myself for next year. I want to be able to be prepared for what there is to come later in my life and the only way I can get experience for it is now. And the things I don’t learn now, I will have to learn as I go.

Looking towards my future is very intimidating. I am going to be graduating in 2025, Its crazy how close that is. I am actually out on my own and working a real full-time job with a degree I worked for. I never thought I could ever get to this point in my life and it’s crazy how fast time can fly. I have always been a dependent person in my life, but never this much. Thinking about what I will have to do and prepare for my future puts a lot of stress on my shoulders. I don’t know if everyone else ever though this way when they were my age but its so crazy to think about. Thinking of getting a solid job that will support me financially, getting my own place to live, and were I even want to live. Its a lot to take in.

Wow, I never thought I would like coding that much. I mean I like doing it, but not actually enjoying doing it. I had only a little experience in coding in high school before I took an entire class on it in college. Coding can be hard at times and depending on the person can vary on whether someone likes to do it or not. But if you are wondering if you want to start coding or if you want to and don’t know where to begin. You’ve come to the right place.

Here are three beginner HTML tags I think you should know to help you get started and to help your website look clean and organized. The three I will talk about are headings, paragraphs, and lists. These three tags will help you go a long way in organizing, arranging, and help clean up your website’s look. Without these three basic tags your website will look all the same and people visiting your website won’t be able to follow very well and will most likely not visit it.

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Heading Tag

The heading tag is an essential part of any website. It differentiate the headings (<h1>) and sub-headings (<h2>-<h6>) of a page from the rest of the content. Even with headers, if your text is all the same size, it will still be a big hassle and annoyance to any reader if they don’t know when information for one section ends and another starts. The image below is an example of code that is the same size.

When looking at these two examples the second header is easier to read and you know were it is. Even in the first example if you can tell were the header is. Not everyone is the same, for example, an older person may not be able to see as well as a younger person. So using the heading tag cleans up the look and makes the size larger. Depending on the tag you use the heading will get bigger or smaller. The heading tag varies with <h1></h1> being the largest, and <h6></h6> being the smallest. The image below shows the difference in size between all six tags.

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Paragraph Tags

Next up will be paragraph tags. Paragraph tags help organize the content on your website. The paragraph tag defines a paragraph in your code. Also, browsers automatically add a single blank line before and after each <p> element. Even without a paragraph tag, you will be able to put content down on your web page. But you cannot customize it in your styles tag or CSS styles page. For without the <p> tag you cannot assign anything, like font style or size to it, at least that I saw. The paragraph tag also organizing you content, so that you know it is a paragraph and not something else and change it on accident. The paragraph tag is <p> with a closing tag of </p>. The image below is an example in how using a paragraph tag can help you organize your content.

Comparing the two examples you can see that the top one is harder to read because there are no breaks in the paragraph. Using multiple paragraph tags can help you ease the reader’s eyes when reading on your website. This also offers a clean and nice overall look to your website as well.

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List Tags

Lastly, there is the list tag. The list tag can be categorized as an ordered list (<ol>) or an unordered list (<ul>). The list tag is used to group a set of related items in lists. This makes things easier to read compared to being in one long sentence. An ordered list uses numbers and is used for things that involve steps to be followed in a certain order. An unordered list uses, shapes like bullet points or squares, and is used to organize and emphasize information quickly and effectively. The images below is an example of a list in a sentence verses used in a bulleted list.

As you can see, in the top example it can be very hard to keep track of where you are, especially if you are in that situation. Lists just help keep everything together in a simple way so that you don’t forget or miss the important things.

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These are just three of the many tags you can use to make your website look organized and clean. There are lots of different codes out there, not just for text, but for the design, this is just the tip of the iceberg. You can do so much with coding and I hope I could help you and that you were able to learn something from this. Happy Coding!

I love all of my classes at STC. They are all so very fun and I enjoy every second of them. But one class in particular has been so much fun that I am considering doing it for work when I graduate college. 

To start, I have never really known what I wanted to do when I graduate STC with my degree. The reason I went into the field is because I knew it was very broad and you could do a lot with it. So I took it up so that I wouldn’t be stuck with one thing and get bored of my job in the future. I was just going to wait it out and do whatever job came to me first because I enjoyed everything equally and didn’t care what I got. But then I found something that stuck out, Photography!

I have lots of fun and favorite assignments in this class but my all-time favorite assignments in this class would probably have to be the Water Splash photography. I want to share with you what I learned and some tips if you want to do it for yourself.

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One thing I learned in this assignment is that light flash freezes motion. I never actually thought of it before until I saw it for myself. I was very surprised when my instructor showed us how to use a water drop. Another thing I learned is that the outcome of the image depends entirely on timing and patience, how you drop it, and how high you drop it from makes a big difference in the picture. It differs from the normal way you would take a picture. When you take pictures of something that stays still it is easy and everyone can do it. But with splash photography, it takes time and many different attempts. And without experience, you probably won’t get it on your first try. Which makes it fun!

The water splash assignment was very fun to do because, if done right, the ending photos look cool. We took pictures of our products in a glass fish tank that we filled up maybe a little bit over two-thirds of the way. We hooked up a transmitter so that the flash would go off when we took our picture. My camera settings were f8 for aperture, my shutter speed was at 1/100, and my IOS was at 200. To get the splash in your image you need to time you’re dropping your item in the water with pressing down your camera’s button.

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My tips to you

• have a flash, so you can freeze the motion and get a nice clear shot 
• timing matters, don’t drop it too soon or too late
• clean your tank, so you don’t have to edit and clean up spots later 

I have learned so much in my photography class. The class made me become more passionate about photography and enjoy doing it. Since I took the class I can always envision myself as a photographer, and being happy with it. My sister even said she might take up a type of business degree so we can start a photography business together. I am really excited to see what life has in store for me!