Self Directed Learning - My Own Experience

When I got my first job out of college, I bought myself a Fossil watch to celebrate. Fast forward about two years and on the last day at that job, the watch died at exactly 5:00pm. I took the watch to a small jewelery store in Winchester hoping to purchase a new battery and struck up a conversation with the owners. I told them the strange story of coincidence surrounding my watch and they asked what I did for a living. I told them i was a graphic designer and they asked me if i designed web sites. I replied no, but that it was something I was interested in learning. They then asked me if I would design a site for them. This would become my first web site.

Here is where my self directed learning experience begins. I knew NOTHING about web design at the time - so I went to the book store and purchased a book on HTML and two of Lynda Weinman's web design books. I then set out to learn how to design a web site.

Through trial and error, I worked my way through the books and typed the code into notepad. When the code didn't work I kept making adjustments and testing until it did. I also joined the HTML Writer's Guild and turned to their message boards many a time looking for advice from other members.

Within three months I had completed my first site. I was thrilled with the results and the jeweler's business also showed a drastic increase and orders started pouring in from all over the US! The experience was truly transformative and launched me on a whole new (and lucrative) career path - a path which I am still walking to this very day.