By the end of my work term, I successfully completed my technological literacy goal of developing my website development and management skills using WordPress. At the beginning of the term, I researched best practices for developing websites using WordPress and Elementor, particularly on how to ensure that websites are responsive across different screen sizes. As I had no prior experience with WordPress or CMS, I started building familiarity with the platform through trial and error, building each page one at a time while applying the concepts I learned. Although I was familiar with responsive design principles, I previously never had the opportunity to put them into practice. This experience allowed me to apply this knowledge by designing and testing the website on mobile, tablet, and desktop views while troubleshooting responsive issues as they arose. In doing so, I gained a deeper understanding of how websites are structured and designed for different screen sizes while learning the importance of testing throughout the web development process. This experience also showed me the influence visual design has on user experience (UX) and usability, especially in shaping how users interact with and navigate websites. As I managed and updated the website throughout the term, I learned how to evaluate design and content choices to improve the UX and make the website more intuitive and visually consistent. Ultimately, I successfully completed this goal and became more confident in independently building, developing and managing websites using CMS. 

By the end of my work term, I successfully completed my goal of improving my written communication skills. At the beginning of the term, I created the website’s structure and brainstormed ideas for the content of each page. From there, I expanded those initial concepts into drafts to form the website copy. As the term progressed, I regularly received feedback from my supervisors and team members to improve sections of content that were unclear or could be communicated more effectively. By incorporating their suggestions, I learned how to write more concisely and make content easier to scan. In particular, I learned to use headings, taglines, short paragraphs, and bullet points to organize information and make it easier to scan and navigate. This process also taught me to write content with the target audience in mind by considering what information would be most valuable to them and organizing it in a logical and intuitive way. As I gained hands-on experience in writing website content, I learned how to evaluate my own writing and identify when it needed clarification or improvement. Ultimately, I became more confident in writing website content independently and required less feedback to make revisions.

By the end of my work term, I successfully completed my inquiry and analysis goal of strengthening my research and analytical skills. Throughout the term, I regularly conducted digital marketing, social media and competitor research, analyzed the findings, translated them into slideshow presentations, and presented my suggestions to the business development team. After these presentations, the team would occasionally provide recommendations on how to improve my research to better fit their needs. Initially, I received feedback that my research and analysis were too broad and needed to be more focused on the aerospace, defence, and space industries. By implementing their feedback, I learned how to conduct more industry-focused research and tailor my analysis to answer specific questions. This experience taught me how to turn research findings into data-driven recommendations by identifying and evaluating trends and strategies to determine their relevance. Ultimately, I became more confident in evaluating research findings to make data-informed suggestions to improve future social media campaigns.