Finding my way through failing
And ending up with a first iteration of my personal site
The beginning
I joined Shift after (jealously) hearing about how cool it was from Julia after she joined in our freshman year. I’ve always been creative (perhaps challenged by starting and/or finishing projects) and I was so excited to meet a group of people with the dedication to fuel and realize self-directed projects, and to complete my own project. Even though the year was entirely online, I still feel like I gained so much from my sandbox’s and everyone else’s projects, ideas, and perspectives. Initially, I wanted to focus on a single project: work it from the ground up by planning and iterating, ending with a final product by May. Spoiler: that didn’t happen, but that’s ok!
In September, I wanted to learn building/woodworking and make a chair. I was excited about this project for a multitude of reasons: I was desperate to get off my computer, I’ve always wanted to learn how to build things (and been super intimidated of it), and furniture design is just so cool. I made some sketches, cut and assembled some parts for a simple wooden box (a mini project before the big one), and… that’s as far as I got. I soon realized that I was too overwhelmed with my fall semester (online learning, doing poorly in classes, family things… it happens) and trying to learn an entirely new skill where I felt like I needed a physical mentor to learn in a more efficient way wasn’t realistic (for me!) at that moment.
I felt like I had failed, for a while. It was tough to see people in my sandbox stay dedicated to their projects while I dropped mine before it even started. During winter break, I felt a bit lost in regards to Shift. I wanted to work on something, but I was burned out from fall semester and discouraged by my own inaction. To remedy this, I tried to use the free time I had during break to brainstorm and figure out what I really wanted to work on; I did this by trying to relax the pressure I put on myself to make something that I thought others would see as valuable.
Intermission
Over winter break, my housemate and I made a light setup for my two fish! Admittedly, this is way out of scope of my knowledge, and a lot of it was me watching him solder and connect wires (though I did do some myself), but it was still a very valuable experience. Diving into something that was so out of my comfort zone was a great way to get out of my head and absorb completely new information. We have the lights on the tank right now, but the next steps (hopefully for this summer) are to code a day/night cycle so the lights can be automated.
A project?! + Next steps
The fish light experience was a sufficient reset for my brain, and I felt much better about ideating and creating going into second semester. I was taking an introductory frontend web development course, a completely new topic for me, and my interest was piqued. Despite my aversion to a tech-related project in the beginning of the year, I found myself with so many ideas about small web projects that I could do to learn more about frontend and (maybe at some point) backend. Ready to break out of my creative block, I started making little things: a static fish gallery site, learning JS by following a tutorial to make snake, etc. These small, low stakes projects helped me get back into the groove of making without the intense pressure I was putting on myself to create something insane. I was taking the time I needed to learn through creating, and that’s ok! I also began work on a larger project: a portfolio/personal site. Since I have a lot of design work/drawings/visual projects that I have to pull out for portfolios, a site with this content all in one place appealed to me over searching my computer for 20 some files when I need them.
At this point, I have a few pages of my site and I’ve learned a lot about HTML, CSS, and JS. While I’m proud of what I’ve learned and created as a Shift project, I’m even more excited to continue work on it and just learn more through doing. I’m also excited for what the next year of Shift holds, as I couldn’t have gotten this far without seeing and learning about other people’s projects. This year has showed me that creating isn’t a consistent, linear process: sometimes it takes taking time away from making, doing something completely unrelated to your focus, or learning through small projects to arrive at a place where you can resume ideation and realize a project.
Hi, I’m Maia! I’m a rising junior studying architecture and minoring in CS. Beyond doing design work for school, I love cooking, reading, being outside, and learning how to climb.