This is my last blog post! My legendary prose ceases today… how tragic!
Let’s get right to it.
Throughout the semester, you have all seen Guthub grow into a semi-finished product. I say semi-finished because I’m only comfortable saying it’s “done” when the image in my head materializes onto the screen. This has benefits and drawbacks. The benefit is Guthub will always be improving, but the drawback is far more serious: I will never be satisfied.
While I’ll be motivated to add features related to emailing suggestions, bug reporting, and improving the user experience, there’s no solid finish line. This non-existent finish line is the relief I want to feel at finally creating a finished website that I feel comfortable listing on LinkedIn or my grad school applications. The problem is that I have no idea when that’ll happen. Because this is a website that is designed to be interactive with users, I have no idea when optimization will be done, let alone how to do it in the first place.
Don’t get me wrong: I see how impressive the website looks. I really am proud of what I’ve accomplished this semester and everyone’s input has made it infinitely better. But I’d be lying if I said I was satisfied. I guess I don’t know when it’s okay to step away from the computer and press submit. I mean, I know I can do that now, but this goes beyond the classroom. In other words, I want to advertise this site for side income and most importantly, to grad admission boards.
The website isn’t ready. Yes, for this class, I’ve reached beyond the point that I needed to get to. But for the actual purpose of this site? Not even close. The apps are polluted with bad user experience and are still missing the major features that are needed to make the app actually usable and a website that people would pay for.
The thing is, I enjoy this dissatisfaction. I like making a hobby out of improving my site. But it’s getting to the point that the features I want to change require more time than a traditional hobby would allow. I have school, albeit only for a few more weeks, I have work, I have friends, I have cats, I have a boyfriend, not to mention my plans to start grad school next year. In order to truly create the website I want, I can’t have most of my time taken up by other responsibilities, the progress would be so slow I wouldn’t be able to release the site for years. This doesn’t even touch on how much work would be required to actually address any bugs or issues users are facing in a timely manner.
I hate working on someone else’s schedule. So much so, I’m hesitant about grad school, which will inevitably lead to being under someone’s wing in their lab when I’m a postdoc. Do I want this? I’m finding myself more and more attracted to the idea of self-employment and getting most of my money from this site. But that’s a risk. A huge risk. Risk doesn’t even begin to encapsulate how much of a risk it actually is.
Some days I want to take that jump.
Some days I don’t.
Regardless, I’m excited to see where I land.