Creative industries sound like the place for you? Not sure where or how you want to be creative yet? Come on in, the kettle’s on.
Twas’ a lukewarm summer before the start of Year 10 and on a whim, I had chosen Media Studies as one of the GCSE options for that year. All I knew is that I got to make posters and play with cameras and that was enough to get me interested.
However, I had also chosen subjects such as Spanish and Latin which in my head had more stable career paths such as teaching or translating. I mean, I liked studying languages, but I was pretty nonchalant about perspective career options. I was bursting with excitement to learn something new like Media Studies.
And after the first couple of lessons, I knew this was something that I at least wanted to try and pursue. In my head, I could only work in the film industry or the tv industry, which is very diverse in its content and production, but it didn’t sound like me. I didn’t want to just stick to TV or Film, I wanted to work across platforms, have a hand in different parts of the process. I felt like I was struggling to find a place or a path for my future and I began to think that the possibility of working in the creative industries was fading bit by bit.
This was at the time of the year in which school start getting their students to look for work placements and take them to career fairs. Cue the 70 emails a day from your career’s advisor, the head of year and his uncle. However, it was among these 70 emails that I happened across an opportunity from the Ideas Foundation which truly helped me to realize my career path in the creative industries.
A one-week media camp to introduce you to and give you a taste of what it’s like to work in the creative industries. I was able to meet and learn from working professionals and other creative peers on the course, engage in a knowledge exchange and learn new skills.
We were set a legitimate brief from IBM and worked with creatives from agencies such as Ogilvy and Mathers to respond to the brief and learned how to professionally create and deliver a proposal.
Though it was a short amount of time, I was able to learn how to use new software, develop my communication and networking skills and expand my knowledge of the creative industries. And as I was taking part in the workshops and delivering the pitch, my goal of working in the creative industry became a tangible thing.
I could see myself at a creative agency with London as the back drop, in a company like Ogilvy (call me ASAP), whose offices we actually got to visit.
Although my career path has slightly changed, this media camp helped me to consider the creative industries as an option and is a part of the reason why I began to pursue a career in this field. The other reasons being the Avengers and The Matrix, but that’s for a later date.
By Viola Bascombe
Comments