Over the past 12 weeks, coming from more than a year’s break of school, I felt a lot of pressure into getting back to the learning routine. I never thought I would come out of just one semester with so much new knowledge and skills. Before the start of the semester, I never really comprehended the idea of media, and how controlling it actually is. The courses structure allowed me to create a whole new perspective on media, and its effect on society. All lecturers and tutors were surprisingly friendly, going against my expectations of how engaging university actually can be.
When it comes down to what I have learned, I can definitely say that a new way of studying was established. University systems work so differently to how school did. The degree covers so many areas of learning, not in an academic way. Within this system, I have learnt how to actually express creativity, thoughts and interpretations into my work, without being examined or tested. Another thing that I have learnt about myself, is how my organizational skills can come into practice. It is such a valuable skill to actually have, and the course allowed me to practice it to such an advantage, making me realize its importance within a professional industry. Throughout all the project briefs, organization is essential in order to make the deadline. I was tested on my abilities, and can now reflect from mistakes when my organizational habits weren’t exactly effective.
I think one of the most effective ways of learning is reflection. Being taught in workshops how to critically analyse my own work as well as other peers, it was through the ‘6 thinking caps’, and other methods of reflective practice that taught me how to learn, and take more than just advice from my work. I was confronted to judge my own, and others work in Workshop 7, giving me the benefit of understanding what I actually produced, and going beyond originality by recognizing meaning through interpretations, errors, and basic skills to improve on. When it comes to making media in the future, and needing to make it that much better, this method is crucial, especially because you are in the industry alone.
When it comes to the challenges of Media One, I came into the course with little knowledge of technical skills. As much as I learnt during the course, I definitely struggled the most in this area. As we didn’t get any workshops on how to use the program, like premiere and audition, we were literally thrown under the bus to produce multiple products throughout the twelve weeks. I had to put the most determination into this weakness, by teaching myself. It was at this point where I actually realized independence is essential in university.
Adding to this struggle, I think my laptop was the biggest predicament, as it prevented me from learning these skills efficiently. As I have newly failed hardrive and battery, my computer was relatively slow and prevented me from learning as much as I could. Throughout the semester, my work constantly deleted and froze at certain times, adding extra stress on top of all other work. If I could go back and get a new computer, I think this would have been a bonus to increasing my technical skills for the rest of the course. However, I aim to improve them over the semester break as I could not do so.
One thing I struggled most was deadlines. Coming into to first year of university, I never understood why everything gets finalized last minute. However, I was surprisingly one of those people, rushing to get it done a few days before the due date. This is an immense learning curve, where I can learn in order to prevent it from happening for the rest of the degree. In order to get good quality work, you must stay organized and on task, and therefore not leave things so last minute.
I felt that every project was a learning experience for me, assisting discoveries on my creative practice. Studying appropriate skills expanded my creativity, where the content given to us in lectorials was nothing but successful. For example, learning about copyright was to purely avoid complications in the future, while having access to many sources to be as creative as we can be, information like this is crucial when it comes to creating projects.
From filming, to audio, photography and editing, the fast paced classes allowed me to learn the skills I need in a short period of time. In saying that, I have learnt more in my life when it comes down to technical skills within this course. Through Premiere, Audition and Photoshop- my skills have advanced so rapidly, which I can use professionally in the future. As my technical skills were poor towards the start of the course, I was unable to use such creativity, and chose to focus on the technical before making it more complicated. However, towards the end of the course, specially project brief four, I was able to explore my level of creativity and the different ways to express meaning in my work.
Looking back on my blog post ‘Dear future self’, I can definitely say that I have achieved some of my goals set in the first week of Media One. I can conclude on saying that I have taken as much out of the course as possible, and I am extremely excited for semester two, to improve my knowledge and skills of other areas of media.
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