Hey there future media moguls. Hopefully you’ve started looking into clubs and talking to people in your field. While networking may have been step one, it is crucial to continue to network throughout your entire journey in sports media.
Now that you’re starting to make connections, and you have an idea of what your goals are in media,you need to figure out what skills are required to achieve those goals. Let’s say you want to run the social media account for the Miami Dolphins. Like I said yesterday, things in media aren’t just handed to you. Remarkably, professional sports teams aren’t exactly knocking down the doors of every college student’s apartment looking to fill their social media staff. It’s nice to have big dreams, but you’re not going to go out and achieve all of them tomorrow. You have to start somewhere though.
One of the first struggles students aspiring to have a career in media face is how they can find their niche in the media industry. Taking courses in the different components of media allows you to develop skills in multiple areas and become more valuable as an employee who can accomplish tasks outside their job description and fulfill multiple roles in a production . It also allows you to find out what you’re good at and what you role you most enjoy taking in the production of media. One thing I recommend to my peers in communications media is to purchase the Adobe Creative Cloud. It has many programs, like audition, photoshop and, premiere, that are helpful to students doing coursework in media production. Getting familiar with these programs allows you to create polished work that is more impressive to future employers looking at your portfolio. Making your portfolio and updating it regularly is an important step in the job search process that we can cover in a later blog.
Once you have discovered what production role you think best suits you, you’re going to need to spend time mastering the specific skills associated with that role. If you want to work as a video editor, work on projects in premiere, or whatever your preferred editing software is. Learn the shortcuts that save you time while editing. Being an editor who can make professional, well produced edits in a quick time frame makes you very valuable in the media industry. If you want to be a photographer, work with your camera. Learn what settings need adjusted to capture compositions that you are proud of. Learn how to use photo editing software to turn your RAW images into something beautiful.
Many people just getting their start in media see professional productions and think, “Why bother? I’ll never be as good as them.” . With that mindset you are already sending yourself down a path to failure. Nobody has ever been truly great at anything the first time they did it. You have to be realistic with yourself. When you were a little kid, the first time you took the training wheels off your bike, I bet you fell down. You probably scraped your knees and thought you would never try again. I also bet you got back on that bike and eventually you learned to ride. Your first project will be bad. Watching it back may hurt you even more than the skinned knees all those years ago. That’s okay, when I watch some of the first videos I made, I cringe and think, “who is this kid who doesn’t know how to make a clean cut?” and “Jeez was anyone going to tell me how terrible the audio mix on this was?” . I still make videos though, and while admittedly they’re nothing to write home about, it’s still shocking how many little things I’ve learned that make worlds of difference to the quality of production I can create. Even though your first few tries are going to knock you down, you have to get back on the bike and try again. The only way to succeed at something is to fail at it over and over and learn from the mistakes you make along the way, just make sure to keep your head up through the struggle.
A piece of advice I left out yesterday that could be considered part of networking, but is also pertinent with today’s topic, is to communicate with professors in your department. If you can’t figure out what career path you want to follow, or you have a path in mind but don’t know what steps you should be taking, talking to professors who have seen countless students go through the same dilemma is a great place to start. I leave you today with a question again. What are skills you can master to help get an advantage in today’s competitive job market for media students?
Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.