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I’ve told you before, that I have one semester of school left. Something that I’ve dealt with and I’ve watched a lot of my friends experience is test anxiety. Even people who aren’t anxious can begin to freak out when the time rolls around for an exam. The calmest people can fall apart when they let test anxiety get to them during their exams.

The way exams are weighted in many classes, it’s no surprise they can bring students so much stress. In some cases, a course’s final grade can depend solely on test scores. This means having a bad grade on even one test can make it impossible to do well in a course. These high-pressure exams can cause students to go to extreme measures to try and prepare. The anxiety of the test can end up being the thing distracting you from getting ready for exams.

You have to go into tests with a positive outlook. Going in and assuming you will fail makes you more likely to second guess yourself. If you prepared well for the exam, second-guessing yourself can cause you to change correct answers. It’s never good to assume you will fail. Being negative also makes your brain work against you. When you are focused on negative thoughts, it is harder to access the information you studied in your brain. Don’t let a hard question early derail your thought process. Getting flustered only makes it harder to focus on your exam.

It is easier to go into tests with a positive mentality when you are well prepared. Studying for exams the right way will make you go into tests feeling like you know what’s coming. I use memory tools like pneumonic devices and flashcards to study for exams. People have different ways of studying. If you choose to use flashcards, make your own. Writing the information down makes it easier to remember. Quizlet has a feature where you can fill in flashcards that you create. Studying this way allows you to remember more information.

By preparing well, you can go into test situations with a more positive attitude. Test anxiety may still creep up, but remember to breathe through it. If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve made it through tests before. The tests are almost over. Once you graduate, your success will no longer be based on testing well. You will be able to prove your value through your work. Get through the last few exams with preparation and positive energy. It will be worth it and you will be alright in the end. Have you ever had to deal with test anxiety? How did you get through it?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

When you graduate college, you aren’t just leaving the university behind. Any media classes or clubs that had a certain way of doing things are now gone as well. When you go into the workforce, some things may be the same, but at least a few things you are used to are bound to change. How equipment is handled, what programs are being used, and even how cords are wrapped at the end of a work day may be different in your new job. You have your experience, but there are some things you will have to relearn.

This can be frustrating for people newly removed from college. They spent years being told one thing by professors, to now be told something different can get under your skin quickly. You’re going from the top of the food chain as a senior in the clubs and classes you were part of. Now you are little fish in a bigger pond and you have to respect the chain of command. You have to realize the people in charge of you could maybe be wrong, but it isn’t your place to tell them.

Remember this isn’t your first time as the little fish in a big pond. You went from high school to college. You were the freshman at the bottom of the food chain at one point. This is kind of different, but even though it is a larger transition, you have still been here before. It is easier to accept change when you think about all of the changes you have already gone through. You learned how to do things the way professors and club leaders wanted during college. You are more prepared now than before to learn the policies and practices of the company now employing you.

If your company wants you to do something in a way you’re not used to, try it their way. Chances are if they do it a certain way, there’s probably a good reason. If you try the other way for a while, and just can’t adjust, talk to your peers or a supervisor. See if it would be okay to use the methods you’re used to. If you truly believe your way will work better for you, it can’t hurt to ask. If they want you to continue to do it their way, you’re going to have to suck it up and learn. Arguing over company policy with your superiors usually isn’t the best hill to die on.

You’re the little fish again, but that’s okay. You’ve adjusted before and will adjust again. Hopefully, there are parts of your new job that you can smoothly transition into. I always wish the best to anyone who takes the time to read my blog posts. If you’ve already made your transition to post-college life, how have you made the best of your new situation?

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Hey guys. I’ve mentioned before that I am an anxious person. One of the many not-so-fun things that come along with anxiety for some people is insomnia. Insomnia is when you know physically that you’re tired but can’t fall asleep. Usually, this is because something is on your mind that is making you anxious and your brain is too focused on the anxious thoughts.

A lot of the time for me, the things making me anxious enough to stay awake are time-sensitive commitments the next day. You can see why this would be an issue. Being worried that I won’t wake up on time causes me to stay up and be more likely to sleep in. This leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy of oversleeping and missing important things.  This obviously creates a lot of problems.

Insomnia is terrible, but it isn’t unavoidable. One way I know that I can put myself to sleep is by using melatonin. Melatonin is a natural supplement that aids with sleep. The problem I have experienced with melatonin is drowsiness the next morning. If you aren’t going to have time to get coffee and take a shower to wake yourself up in the morning, melatonin is a risky way to fall asleep. You can still use it if you have to be up early, you just have to take the melatonin early enough to get a good amount of sleep while still having time to wake up and get moving in the morning.

If you know for a fact that you won’t have time in the morning, and don’t want the drowsiness from melatonin, there are other ways to fall asleep without it. Something that works for me is reading a book. Taking your eyes off of your screen and making your brain do the work of reading is a goodway to wear yourself out. I find that sitting and reading for an hour can put me straight to bed. A large part of this is from getting off of technology. Putting your phone and computer down, and turning the TV off lets your brain relax and cool down. This makes it easier to fall asleep.

By turning off your technology, and if you have the time in the morning, taking melatonin, you can help to ease your insomnia. These things won’t always help. If your insomnia is chronic and you can’t seem to do anything to fall asleep, talk to your doctor. Getting the help you need is important and it is okay to not be okay. Have you ever suffered from insomnia? If so, how did you get yourself to fall asleep?

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As you start getting ready for graduation, it’s a happy time because you are finally done with school after 17 or more years. It’s also time to face the sad reality that some of the friends you made during your college career are going back home or moving to other parts of the country. People who have spent the last 4+ years as part of your life will now be people you see sparsely if ever again. It’s a problem that every graduating college senior has to face.

This reality can make the transition to the real world even scarier. When you experience new things in college, your friends are by your side. During your first frat party and bar trips, you were with friends. Now you are experiencing the biggest change of your life and your buddies aren’t around. This can be terrible for recent college graduates.

Remember, your friends that have moved on from school along with you are experiencing the same thing. Just because they’re not physically with you doesn’t mean that you can’t act as a support system for each other. We live in a world where we can always communicate with each other. Your friends and you can stay in each other’s lives and grow in your separate careers. You will make new friends in your life, but your closest friends from college can stay in your life as well.

Make plans to see each other. If your school hosts a homecoming, you can come back to school for a weekend and see your friends. Planning to see them can give you something to talk about and spark conversation to plan. If you play fantasy sports or are involved in other online group activities with your college friends, work to keep them going. These can also allow you to plan a time to meet up and see your friends.

Staying in touch and planning to see each other is a good way to keep your college friends. It won’t always be easy, and if you are the only person making an effort to see each other, it’s sad to say but friendships end. As you grow older and have more responsibilities, you can’t hold on to every friendship. Learning that this is true will be hard, but it’s just how life goes. You will keep a lot of friends and make more along the way, but losing friends is something you have to accept. You’re not friends with everyone you were in high school. You definitely don’t have the same friends you did in elementary school. Moving on in life is for the better. What will you do to try and keep your friendships as you move on from college?

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This is going to be more of a goofy one guys. This problem isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Ever since I started taking media classes I don’t watch movies the same way anymore. Since learning about the production process, decisions that directors make have started to make me irrationally angry. This new lens through which I now consume media has been both a good thing and a bad thing.

When directors use certain shots to hide something or try and trick the audience members’ brains, I now pick up on it more easily. It has allowed me to gain a newfound respect for some directors when they accomplish something visually stunning. But more often, I become infuriated with why directors make certain decisions. Before when a shot in a movie was disorienting and it was hard to tell what was going on I would be annoyed but not think much into it. Now I know there were better choices directors or editors could have made to make the story of a movie flow more easily.

The way I have been trying to handle this problem is by trying to tune out the media student thought and shut off the part of my brain that tries to analyze every frame of a movie. If you look at every movie trying to find plot holes and continuity changes, it makes the film-watching experience much less enjoyable. I love the Marvel franchise. It’s probably the nerdiest thing about me, but I’ll admit it, it is a world I have found myself sucked into. The movies and shows have stunning audio and visuals and are just fun to watch.  When my brain started trying to get too analytical with the Marvel franchise I knew something had to change.

Watching movies where Asgardian gods and talking raccoons battle aliens is a scenario that makes it easy to suspend your belief. So why was I looking for camera tricks and weird cuts in these movies? Because I was working on productions for school every day. What I decided to do was stop working on my own projects for a day to get out of the mindset of production. I’d go see a movie and then come back and work after. When you get your brain out of the space of editing and audio mixing, it is easier to enjoy movies for the fun experience they are instead of picking them apart.

So take a break. Go enjoy a movie. Get back out and bring the theaters back from the dead. If you are one of the people who watch movies just looking for things to nitpick, just try for once to not do that. A movie is a lot more fun when you shut off your brain, suspend your belief and allow yourself to enjoy it. I have two questions for this post.

1. Do you know where the title of this blog came from? If so, respect.
2. What’s your favorite movie to turn your brain off and just enjoy?

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Hi guys. Something I struggle with sometimes is feeling like my work will never be as good as the things I see in movies and on TV. I know this feeling can creep up on a lot of students in the media field. Having access to thousands of movies through streaming services shows students how far along some pros in the industry are, and how much catching up we amateurs still have to do.

This can be worse for some students than others. I try to stay positive about the work I make. Then I turn on Ms. Marvel and see Disney creating PG-rated kids’ shows with production quality I couldn’t touch with two ten-foot poles taped together. Experiencing the audio-visual masterpieces that Hollywood creates today can lead a lot of us to say “why even bother?”.

These feelings are understandable, but if you don’t think the people creating today’s movies looked at the films being created when they were your age and thought the same things, you’re dead wrong. Technology has continued to improve, which means movies become even more stunning to look at and listen to. You have to accept that creating films like the Marvel franchise takes an amount of both time and money that simply no individual has access to. Watch the end credits in a Marvel movie. They get you to stick around with post-credit scenes for a reason. There are hundreds and hundreds of people working on every blockbuster film. You aren’t going to be able to compete with the production value of a studio that spends hundreds of millions of dollars to create its films.

Comparing yourself to yourself is the better strategy. I’ve talked about this before. The only person you can control is you. Comparing your newer work to things you’ve made previously will truly show you what you have accomplished and how your skills have improved. Your background music isn’t going to be as polished as a Hans Zimmer score, but maybe you’ve gotten better with balancing audio and have chosen more appropriate musical accompaniments over time. Look at your progress and stop comparing yourself to everyone else. There is only one you. Focus on being the best version of you that you can be.

No one is perfect alone. Not a single person working on a blockbuster film could create the film alone. Surround yourself with other people who share your goals. Working on productions with other talented people will allow you to learn from them and become better yourself. You can also achieve a much more polished final product by having the help of others. You’re not alone on your journey in media. Don’t be too prideful to ask for help when you need it.

By working with others and focusing on bettering yourself you wouldn’t believe the things you could achieve. Who knows, maybe one day your name will be in the credits of a Hollywood blockbuster. Anything is possible when you put your mind to it. What will you do to start bettering yourself immediately?

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Hey guys.Welcome back to another one of my blog posts. As you know I am hoping to one day work in the sports media industry. One problem I face, that I know is shared by a lot of my peers is figuring out what the path to sports media looks like. There are so many different careers available in sports media that all have their own pros and cons. Figuring out what position you want to end up in can almost be as hard as figuring out where to start.

With the advent of new media. The sports media world has grown exponentially. People’s access to sports media used to be their local sports radio, sports sections in the news, magazines, and if they had the right TV package, ESPN. Now there are countless sports media companies on the internet to go along with legacy media. Professional sports franchises and college sports alike have huge media teams. In some cases, there are more media employees in the building than players on the team. The market has grown, but it has also given hopeful future sports media employees a lot of decisions to make.

Your first decision is whether you want to work for a sports team or a media company that talks about sports. These two paths have similarities but are also quite different. In working for the media department of a sports franchise or university, you will be part of the team responsible for the public image and reputation of the organization employing you. Your work will most likely include writing press releases and working on the organization’s social media presence. If you would rather go down the path of media companies, you will be part of a team responsible for reporting on sports. You will most likely be in a fast-paced, competitive environment writing game recaps and potentially working on projects for social media.

There are other avenues for sports media, specifically on the broadcast side. These positions are hard to obtain. You would more than likely have to start for a small semi-professional or amateur team. There is also no guarantee of advancement as many broadcasters stay with their teams for life, and to move up someone has to notice you above other broadcasters which is no easy task.

Once you decide on a path you want to take, you have to decide what role you are best suited to fill. New employees won’t often be given a platform to speak to a company’s large platform, so don’t be expecting to host a show on your first day. This is why it is important to work on your writing. Talented writers who can work quickly are employees that every media company looks for. If you can write well, this is your best path to success in sports media. If you can’t write that well, the ability to create and edit content is also highly valued. Working in both photo and video editing software and honing your skills will also make you a high-value prospective employee.

Continue to work on projects. Writing and editing are skills that will continue to benefit you throughout your career. Never stop working to be better at both. Which career path would you rather take in sports media, working for a pro or college sports franchise or joining a sports media company?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

One of my favorite parts of the video creation process, and a skill every student in media should learn, is editing. Editing can is the process in which the editor takes video shots and audio elements, and uses other post-production software to combine these elements to create a final video production. Some media students gravitate toward other aspects of the production process but in my opinion, the editing is the most important part of the production.

Some students steer clear of editing because the barrier of entry seems daunting. Editing is a difficult process and a tedious one at that. When editing frustration can build quickly. The shots could have been angled in a way that makes a clean cut seem virtually impossible. When editing you have to be cognizant of the starting and ending positions of the subjects in every shot. It is up to you to make the final product something that the audience can watch and easily understand what’s happening. This stress can be too much for some students who then decide not to focus on the editing process.

The ability to edit has become even more important in digital media. Information is constantly being shared on the internet. Being able to turn around edits quickly is a valuable skill. Learning to edit seems difficult at first, but can be achieved through practice. Like anything, the more you work on editing, the better you’ll be. Taking time to practice and accepting that it won’t be easy at first are good ways to start learning. If there is something you don’t know how to do while editing, look it up. The great thing about the internet is that there are thousands if not millions of users having the same struggles as you.  There will be tutorials that will teach you how to do what you’re trying to do.

It will be hard at first, but as you continue to work on editing, you will be surprised by the progress you can make. When you start making edits you feel confident in, show them to people and ask for feedback. Getting other people’s opinions will give you something to think about as you’re creating your next production. If a lot of people have the same negative takeaways, you know what you’re going to have to work on. Don’t be afraid to fail. You can learn from bad projects to make better ones in the future.

There are countless editing programs. I personally use Adobe Premiere but I think a lot of the options are very similar and that what you choose to use will come down to preference. That’s why I didn’t want to touch on specific parts in the editing process as you will do things differently on different programs. If you edit, what’s your favorite part of the editing process? If you’re not an editor yourself, is there any part of editing that interests you?

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When you are in the media industry, naturally you will end up spending a lot of time online making connections. The internet and social media are very important in today’s media world. Some of the connections you make online could be extraordinary in helping to move forward in your career. Not everyone online is so trustworthy though. People can pretend to have your best interests in mind while they are actually scheming to steal your information or take control of your account.

With social media growing exponentially, the number of scammers looking to use social media to find their victims have increased. Scammers have also become smarter. The days of emails from “Nigerian Princes” that want to send you their fortune are long gone. Now people use more nefarious schemes to steal user data. Posing as companies who want to do ambassador deals, or taking control of one of your less vigilant friends’ accounts and using their identity to try and take your account as well.

If you are contacted about becoming a brand ambassador make sure you take the time to look into the opportunity. If you have a small following on social media, these opportunities are probably not real. Reputable brands don’t look for advertising opportunities with unknown creators. If you do have a large following. Look into the company. If an account that isn’t followed by the company’s main account reaches out to you, turn and run. If a company really wants to work with you that is great, just be aware of what you’re getting into before you accept.

If you receive a message that seems suspicious from a trusted friend on social media and a link is attached, don’t click the link at least not right away. Reach out to the friend through a different mode of communication. Find out if they sent the message. If they didn’t, warn them that their account may be compromised so they can take the steps to recover it. Clicking links from untrusted sources is never a good idea. Links can be used by hackers to take control of your device and gain access to your personal data. Be vigilant with what links you decide to click.

Deciding who to trust when meeting new people online is difficult. You can look at their interactions with other users, and talk to people who you trust to see if they know the people reaching out to you. It’s important to be cautious online but you don’t want to be so closed off to the point that you can no longer make meaningful connections online.

There are a lot of bad people online. You have to be extra careful today and be aware of ways to protect your online identity. Downloading a VPN can encrypt your data to make it more difficult for hackers to access your information. Installing anti-virus software can also keep your computer safe from attacks by cybercriminals. What are some ways you keep your identity safe online?

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Hey there again guys. Reading the title I know you’re thinking that being happier doesn’t have anything to do with getting into the media business. Although the two don’t seem connected, they really are in the end. Connecting with people is easier when you have a positive attitude. People gravitate towards people who radiate positive energy. The problem is negativity is becoming more and more prevalent in the world.

Social media websites allow people to see what people are doing all around the world. Before social media, to find out what was going on, even in your own friend group, you had to call them on the phone and talk. Now you can know what is going on in the lives of anyone who chooses to share their life on social media. Kids my age constantly compare themselves to people they’ve never even met. Being happy when social media shows you people that are happier than you, and people who are less happy than you are saying terrible things to each other, and on some occasions, you can be a difficult task.

One of the first steps to being happy is to let go of little things. A lot of people let minor inconveniences control their mood daily. I have fallen into this trap myself. Allowing what everyone else is doing to control your mood will never lead you to happiness. You are only in control of one person; yourself. It is nice to have high expectations of others, but people do not always deliver on those expectations. It is okay to get frustrated when things don’t go according to plan, but you have to keep things in perspective. If it isn’t something you will still be mad about a week from now, then why let that anger control your day? Take a few breaths and think about whether it is something to be upset about or not. Things will come up that frustrate you in life. Dealing with them calmly will make it more enjoyable to be around you.

Another way to work on your happiness is to stop comparing yourself to others. Unless cloning has somehow been discovered by the time you are reading this blog, there’s only one of you. Comparing yourself to others in certain scenarios is fine, but everyone is different. People learn new skills and get work done at different rates. Compare yourself to yourself. As you improve at things, you should look how you’ve grown compared to how you were. This actually gives you a way to track your progress and feel accomplished in the fact that you’ve improved instead of worrying what other can do.

Working to be more positive will allow you to connect with more people. As I’ve said before, connecting with people is crucial in the media world. If you improve your own happiness, people will be happy to have you around. What will you do to work on being happier with yourself?

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(Disclaimer: This post is to be used in emergency scenarios only. Procrastination is a very bad way to get work done.)

Hi, guys. I have a confession to make. My name is Cole Carder, I’m 22, and I am a serial procrastinator.  Procrastination is not something I’m proud of. Before college, I was always kind of lucky. School came easily to me and I would often wait to do projects until the last minute but was still able to receive good grades throughout. I didn’t start to learn the danger of procrastination until I started college.

I’m not saying procrastination is unavoidable. There are a ton of students that aren’t like me, and stay ahead of their school work. However, between jobs, school, and extracurriculars, the case for a lot of students is the same as mine. Procrastinating until the last minute and having a lot of work to finish in a short amount of time. While I’ve tried to be better at starting work early and follow my own advice from the earlier blog post about getting motivated to work, sometimes I still find myself back down the rabbit hole of procrastination.

Obviously not procrastinating is the best method, but once you’re almost out of time to finish a project, there’s no turning back the clock, and the work still needs to be done. It’s time to get working the only way we procrastinators know; quickly. Getting a lot of work done fast isn’t easy, but it’s possible in a pinch.

The first thing you should do to start the day when you have work to get done is to get anything that you absolutely have to do that day out of the way. If you don’t have something to eat around the house go get it. Once you start working, you don’t want to be pulled away from working for long periods. Once the essential tasks are out of the way, it’s time to figure out how much work you need to get done. Break the work done into tasks that need to be completed by a certain time or day. This gives you an idea of how much work you need to get done in a set amount of time.

So doing a lot of work in a short time obviously isn’t fun. Do you know what else isn’t fun? Doing the laundry. Let’s be honest, if you’re the type of person who procrastinates schoolwork, you’re probably the type of person who procrastinates laundry. On days when I’m getting schoolwork done after procrastinating, I decide the day is kind of a wash, to begin with, because I’m going to be working all day. I use doing the laundry as a way to take breaks and do something easy that lets my brain rest. Since a cycle of laundry also takes about an hour, I use the laundry cycles to set goals. For example, if I have multiple papers or essays to write, I want to be able to finish 1 paper per cycle or something of that nature.

Procrastination is bad, and none of us should do it, but if you find yourself in my position, I hope this post will help make getting the work done a little less terrible. Thanks for reading along. How will you work to try and avoid procrastination in the future?

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What’s up, guys? I don’t know if I’ve even mentioned my age in any of these posts or not. I’m 22 and I have one semester left before I graduate from college. So, that’s pretty exciting but also kind of terrifying. If you’re coming up on the end of your college career, I’m sure you get the feeling.  The problem is we’ve been isolated in a school setting for the last 17+ years of our lives. From the time you were 4 or 5 until the end of high school, you spend 8 hours a day for most of the year in classrooms. In college, you get your first taste of freedom, and for me, it took a big adjustment period to not take that freedom for granted. A lot of students do. I’ve met plenty of people with who I thought I would be friends for years to come only to find out upon returning for my next semester that they failed all of their classes and dropped out for good. So if you’re almost done with school, congratulations. There are a lot of people who don’t make it that far. The only caveat is your reward for the last 17+ years is the stress of your new beginning in the real world.

The obstacle a lot of students fresh out of school face is finding a job so they don’t have to move back in with mom and dad. One of the things I hope you take away from this post is that moving back in temporarily isn’t the end of the world. Getting your footing under you financially and figuring out your cost of living is essential when going into the real world.

I know, the move back home might feel embarrassing for a college grad, but you have to remind yourself that it will only be a temporary situation. If the job you find is close to home, it would be irresponsible to take on rent immediately. I lied earlier, graduation doesn’t only bring the stress of the real world. For a lot of former students, it also means it’s time to start paying back student loans. If your post-grad job isn’t close to home, or you just want to be on your own, you need to figure out what your expenses will be with both rent and student loan payments. Also factor in all the standard costs of living, like gas and groceries. Establishing a budget based on what you earn and what you have to spend is essential to keeping your head above water in the real world.

You can ease your transition from college to the real world by working to set up a work and living situation before you graduate. Start your job search during your last semester of school. Once you have figured out where you are going to work, it will be easier to plan for the next step in your life. Knowing what you will be earning at your job also allows you to figure out what you can afford to pay for rent. Having a plan in place will allow graduation to be the Happy occasion that it should be, and relieve some of the stress and anxiety of the real world closing in.

Getting organized is going to become more and more essential as you get older. The more you start to earn, the more bills and fees you’ll have to pay. Having a solid financial game plan will set a strong foundation for your new life as a former student. What will you do to start better preparing for your future?

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Guys, I’m going to be real with you for a minute. I am a very anxious person. I don’t know if there is really a way that you could discern that just by reading my writing, but if you know me, it wouldn’t take you long to figure it out. I’ve been able to ease my worry in many scenarios by remembering that a lot of the people that have negative opinions about you can’t do anything to negatively impact your life. This isn’t to say I don’t still try to be a sociable guy, but not everyone is going to like you. That’s just a sad truth that eventually you’re going to learn in life.

This solution doesn’t exactly work for interviews, however. In an interview setting, the opinion of a person you are meeting for the first time is pretty much the deciding factor in whether or not you get a job. First impressions are always important, but I know that some of my friends are people who I did not like the first time I met them. When you don’t make a great first impression in social settings, people’s impression of you can change and get better by spending more time with you. With someone conducting your interview, you have a short window of time to make a good impression on someone that can change the next 10 years of your life. If you are a person who gets anxious, this can definitely be something that spikes your worry.

I want to share with you some of the methods I use to reduce my anxiety when getting ready for an important interview. Starting with remembering that companies who are hiring are looking for reasons to hire you not working against you trying to keep you from getting hired. The people interviewing you were in your shoes at one point and went through countless interviews themselves. I also make sure to stay rational. Not getting a job is a sucky feeling, but it’s not the end of the world.

I remind myself of all of these things as I’m getting ready for the interview. This helps to keep the interview in perspective of what it really is. Your portfolio is going to pull a lot of the weight for you if you do good work. All you have to do is be personable, so the interviewer doesn’t have anything negative to say about you. Answering the questions well and being easy to talk to will go a long way.

You can better prepare yourself for the interview by researching the company. Learn their mission statement and some background of the company’s history. This will make you seem knowledgeable and come across as a better fit for the company. Prepare questions for the interviewer. When they ask if you have any, you won’t have to stop and think, you will be prepared with questions in hand.

If you remind yourself that the interview isn’t life or death and prepare yourself appropriately, your nerves during interviews should begin to subside. If you’re still nervous remember to take deep breaths and think positive thoughts. What are some techniques you use to reduce stress?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

Hey, there future media moguls. If you’re anything like me getting the motivation to work on projects doesn’t come easily to you. There have been countless times when I get ready to work on something and decide to put it off or get distracted by other things. This is something I have found to be true for a lot of the students at my school.

Many college students don’t only have school projects to worry about, as a lot of students juggle college coursework with internships, part-time jobs, and extracurriculars. Getting the motivation to work on school projects isn’t easy, especially when friends in an extracurricular want your help on projects, and your boss wants you to pick up an extra shift at work. Students who don’t have a plan in place can find themselves quickly behind in their classes with their GPA suffering the consequences.

Getting a plan in place to balance a busy college schedule is essential for students to handle their workload. Keep a calendar or planner to keep track of what assignments you have to get done and what dates they need to be finished. If you try and remember everything you have to do, you’re setting yourself up to forget something essential and the only person getting affected by your mistake will be you. Things will inevitably come up that change your plans. That’s how life works. It’s still better to have a plan that you can make small changes to when things happen than to have no plan at all.

Once you have a plan in place and your workload feels more manageable, you have to have a strategy in place to make your workflow more efficient. Setting small goals within a project makes you feel like you’re accomplishing more. This feeling of accomplishment will help motivate you to keep working. If work is going slowly, stand up and walk around. Go outside and get fresh air. If you don’t take a break when you are feeling overworked and burnt out, you won’t get more work done by angrily staring at your screen.

If your plan is in place and you have goals but you still can’t find the motivation to start working, a thing I’ve found to be helpful is to give yourself something to look forward to. Make plans with your friends to go out after you finish your homework. This will give you a true motivating factor to get work done efficiently. Telling yourself that after you finish working you will do something you enjoy, makes doing the work feel like it’s worth something. People go to work and do their jobs because there is a reward at the end of the week when they get paid. Media majors can usually see the reward in their media classes of learning new skills and creating productions for their portfolios, but this isn’t the case for some of their general education classes like biology or history. Giving yourself goals that you reward yourself for makes projects for these classes feel like they’re worth doing.

If you stay organized,  plan ahead, set goals for yourself, and give yourself a break with things you enjoy, finishing projects will begin to feel more manageable. Getting more work done also allows you to work on side projects creating content for fun that you enjoy making. The content you are passionate about will be easier to create without worrying about other projects you are required to do, so save that as one of your rewards. What will you take away from this post to better manage your workload?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

Hello, again my future media moguls.  With this post, we continue building ourselves to be better candidates for careers in the media industry. Specifically, I will be discussing how to build a portfolio that showcases your production capabilities.  Many students go into interviews for media positions unprepared to show the interviewer work they have already created. This is the purpose of building a portfolio that demonstrates your skills to your potential employer.

The first problem students face when creating their portfolio is what work will best showcase their talents in media. Students must learn to look at the work they produce as something to impress future employers and decide what work will be most impressive. Keeping this mindset while working on projects also makes you more likely to notice your mistakes and improve your work in a subconscious effort to make it more impressive to potential employers.

Versatility is an important thing to think about when creating your portfolio. I’ve said before that media companies love to hire one person who can fulfill multiple production roles to work in their production departments. If you have multiple talents and are willing to complete tasks outside your job description, you’re a better candidate than someone who can only do one thing. If you’re a person with multiple talents, use your portfolio to showcase that. If you write, film, and edit videos, don’t just show the final product, show your scripts and storyboards. New-age media companies want employees who can be involved through the entire production process.

This should be a no-brainer but show your best work. If you have projects you produce that you are proud of, that is the stuff that needs to be on your portfolio. Employers want to see the best of you, so put your best work at the top. Not everyone is going to look through every project you have so you want to impress them immediately with your absolute best. You can also separate your work into categories (photography, video editing, writing, etc…). This will make it easier for employers looking for specific skills to find the work that demonstrates your ability in those areas.

After you make your portfolio, you’re obviously not going to stop producing work. As you make new content, and your skills improve, you will produce things that are better than what is currently on your portfolio. This is why it is important to continue to update your portfolio as you improve your skills.  Always keep your best work first and remove work that doesn’t meet the standards you have for yourself as you improve.

You can keep a portfolio that is just a file or thumb drive filled with your work but to take your portfolio to the next level you can create an online portfolio. Using free website creation tools like Wix and WordPress allows people with no web design experience to create websites. Turning your portfolio into a website allows you to send a link that displays your work in a way that you choose to have it appear to potential employers. This is undoubtedly the best way to create your portfolio.

Keep producing media and continue updating your portfolio, and when the time comes for interviews, you will have a body of work to impress potential employers. To end with a question again, what will be your first step to creating a professional portfolio?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

Hello to all my future media moguls. A problem, that many students in the media field face, is finding ways to gain experience in their field.  Media experience is vital in your future job search. However, finding avenues in which to gain that experience can seem impossible. This experience-based barrier of entry to the media world leads some students to give up on their dreams in media before they even have a chance to get their start.

This dream-crushing reality stems from students being either uninformed or apathetic about the resources they have at their disposal. Many students don’t take the time to look into what options they have to gain the experience needed in their field. I found myself making this mistake early in my college career. When I decided to change my major to media production I had a dream job in mind and was solely focused on getting to that point. This isn’t the case for all media students, but I know that I’m not the only one who has been too caught up in the fantasies of their ideal career to actually come back to reality and figure out the steps to make that dream even remotely possible. I finally had my “snap back to reality” moment when I applied for a competitive internship with my aforementioned dream company. When I wasn’t selected for one of the internship positions I realized that things weren’t going to come easily to me in my journey to sports media.

Luckily I was able to find an internship, although in a much different environment than the dream job I imagined. The time spent worrying about whether or not that would even be possible ensured that I learned my lesson. My hope for anyone reading this is that you don’t have to learn your lessons the hard way. I have a tendency to exclusively learn all of my lessons the hard way and I know from experience that it’s not a pleasant way of learning. That’s why today I bring you some advice on how to start gaining media experience immediately and what tools you can use to find more opportunities to gain experience.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; JOIN CLUBS. Being a college student with access to clubs in the media field gives you opportunities to take on roles in the production of media that no TV studio, radio station, etc… would ever allow a student with virtually no experience in the field to fill. Clubs also give you countless ways to improve both your resume and portfolio. You can save the work you produce for clubs and show them to employers as examples of your work. Taking leadership roles in these clubs provides something to add to your resume that will set you apart from other candidates. If you’ve read my first blog, you also know how important clubs can be to network in the media field. If you aren’t looking into what clubs you could be joining next semester at this point, then what are you even doing?

Clubs are a great starting point, but club experience can only get you so far. Large media companies are looking for candidates who have experience in a more professional setting. Now my friends it’s time to introduce you to the world of internships. Internships are a form of temporary employment where students can gain professional experience in their field without a company committing to give them a full-time job. The biggest difference between internships and full-time jobs is usually the pay. Many internships are unpaid or pay very little. This can be inconvenient to students who are already paying tuition to attend college, but the internship process is vital to a successful career search. Some internships can also potentially lead to a future career with the same company.

Finding an internship in your field can seem impossible, but if you go about your internship search the correct way, you will find it much easier than you expect it to be. To get an internship you need to know where to start. Indeed.com and similar job listing websites have job postings in virtually every field in virtually every city in the country. To find an internship in your desired field, the first step is to visit one of these websites and search for the job you want followed by the word intern (i.e. Video Production Intern). If you have a specific city, maybe somewhere close to home, where you are looking for internship opportunities, you can use these websites’ location filters to narrow the search to your desired location.

A good rule to go by is to apply to be considered for ten internships a day. The application process is usually pretty quick and you can easily apply for ten or more internships in about an hour. Simply doing this daily gives you a  good chance to find an internship site that is looking to hire a candidate like you. If you’re a college student, you can also check with advisors and professors and your department who have connections and have helped other students find internships in the same field.

Once you have found an internship, make sure to use your time there to learn and grow from the experience. With most internships being unpaid, you aren’t gaining anything from the experience if you aren’t working to grow your skill set.  Also, remember to save any work you produce during your time with clubs and internships to later be used as examples to demonstrate your skills to potential employers. My question for my readers today is; How will you use this advice to find new opportunities to gain experience and knowledge in the media industry?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

Hello media moguls. Today we take a step back from our job search to focus on a skill sports media companies value heavily, writing. Being a well-rounded individual is important in a modern media environment. Having a skill for writing game recaps and press releases in a short turnaround is essential for making it in the sports media world.

The problem today is getting your writing seen. The second a game ends, hundreds of sports journalists are already writing their game recaps. How do you get your work noticed on social media sites flooded with other writers? The best way to give your game recaps a chance to be seen is by focusing on the three keys, speed, title, and content.

Key #1: Speed

When it comes to game recaps, when the final whistle blows, you have no time to spare. Once a contest has ended, writers immediately start working on their game recaps. Waiting hours to start writing makes it much less likely that fans will even bother to look at your recap. When newspapers were still the fastest form of media, you could afford to write slowly, but with hundreds of game recaps being released, and flooding users’ timelines, you have to be quick to the punch. Start working on recapping earlier parts of the game in breaks before the game ends. This will allow you to finish your recaps more quickly than people who wait for the end of games.

 

Key #2: Title

To capture an audience, your recap needs to have a title that catches people’s eyes. Be honest; are you more likely to read a recap titled “Sixers Lose Again” or one that has the title “Sixers 2023 Woes Continues Losing Fourth Straight Game in the New Year”? You and I would both be more likely to click on the latter. Creating captivating titles increases the likelihood that users will gravitate toward your recaps. Using more interesting language is a good place to start when brainstorming titles.

 

Key #3: Content

You can be the first article released and have the most intriguing titles for your articles, but if you don’t do a good job of actually recapping the game, you will quickly lose credibility. When writing a game recap, you want the reader to be able to understand what happened in the game without being bogged down by information. This leads to a fine line between including too much or too little. Different sports require different information, but the way I like to look at a game recap is by thinking about what parts of the game will be mentioned in the water cooler talk tomorrow. Fans who aren’t able to watch the game you’re recapping want to be able to know what happened and not be lost in conversation when the game they read about is mentioned. Key things to mention in game recaps include scoring plays in pretty much every sport that isn’t basketball, and interesting plays, good or bad, that happened during the game.

Now that you know the keys to a game recap I want to share a game recap I wrote for tonight’s Phillies game.

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Late Three-Run Shot From Schwarber Propels Phillies to 8-5 Victory in San Diego

(San Diego, CA) – The Padres struck first on a warm afternoon in sunny San Diego. A Hosmer groundout allowed Jake Cronenworth to score first on a fielder’s choice in the bottom of the first inning.  The Phillies quickly claimed a lead of their own, as Bryson Stott singled to score Odubel Herrera. Stott then reached home as well on a double from Kyle Schwarber.

This lead was short-lived, however, as in the bottom of the third Cronenworth tallied his second run as both he and Hosmer crossed home on an Austin Nola 2-run double. Nola then scored along with Nomar Mazara on a C.J. Abrams ground-rule double, for the Padres’ second two-run double of the 3rd inning giving them a 5-2 lead. This would be the last time a player in a Padres uniform would score tonight.

Rhys Hoskins scored on a Nick Castellanos single in the top of the 5th to bring the Phillies within 2 runs.

In the top of the seventh with Bryson Stott on second and Matt Vierling on first, Kyle Schwarber stepped into the batter’s box for the 4th time tonight. After taking 2 balls on the first 2 pitches, and looking at a changeup in the zone. Schwarber launched an 82 mph changeup 403 feet into left field for a 3-run homer to give the Phillies a 6-5 lead.

Alec Bohm was scored by a Garrett Stubbs Single in the 8th, and Vierling scored again in the 9th on a Ray Kerr wild pitch to end the game with a final score of Phillies 8, Padres 5. The 3-1 series win over San Diego moves the Phillies’ Record to 39-35 on the season.

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This is how I write my game recaps. How will you use these tips to become more well-rounded in the sports media industry?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

Also, check out the Video Blog that was made to go along with this blog post.

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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5t2C7m6RSJgXv1e-3qhjNw

The media industry has exploded in recent years. This can be attributed to the rapid growth of social networks. Facebook alone has billions of users. Companies are taking advantage of these massive user bases and creating content specifically for social media. Taking advantage of social media is important while looking for a career in the media industry.

The first challenge you will face with social media is growing a following. Getting users who are already following hundreds if not thousands of other accounts on social media to notice you is a daunting task. No one who isn’t already a celebrity can start a social media account and expect to instantly have thousands of followers. In the rest of this blog, I will present some of the strategies used to grow a following on social media.

1. Just keep posting

The way social media platform algorithms are set up. The more you post, the more likely people will see your posts. How much you should post varies from platform to platform. On Twitter, users with a larger following are tweeting constantly throughout the day. Popular Instagram Users post around once a day on their feed while also utilizing Instagram’s story feature. While it may feel like you’re just posting to the void if something you post gains a lot of attention on social media, users looking at your profile are more likely to follow you if they see other posts they enjoy.

2. Join the Discussion

Only you know what you’re interested in. Use your strengths. There are people having conversations about almost any topic you could think of almost constantly on social media. Join the conversations that you relate to. This allows you to network with people who share your interests and you might even gain a few followers who share your point of view.

3. Show your talents.

In today’s age, if you want to work in media you can show what talent you possess by posting your work online. Unless your talent is photography don’t just post pictures. If you edit videos post some clips of your work. If you’re a writer, share your blogs or articles. Companies looking to hire you for media are going to look at your social media accounts. Posting content you are proud of that showcases your talents just gives companies another positive point of reference when deciding who to hire.

4. Cross-Promote

If you have a social media post that is gaining traction and drawing attention to your account on one platform, use that attention to grow across all platforms. Links to your other social media accounts should be included in the biography section of all of your accounts. If a clip of a video you created is harboring attention on Twitter, make sure you include a link to the original video on YouTube, and encourage people to like your videos and subscribe to your channel. The more you can grow your social media following, the more people that will see your work.

Following these tips aren’t going to magically make you famous on social media. The content you produce has to be engaging. Even then, part of growing a following on social media will always be getting lucky. You can have engaging content, but if it doesn’t reach the right audience there’s no guarantee of success. Doing these things are a way to expand your reach on social media. As I previously stated, if more people are following you more people will see the things you produce. More people seeing your stuff means you are more likely to find people who enjoy the content you create. By following the advice in this blog you might just find your niche audience on the internet.

My question for this blog is: What talent do you have that you want to share with your internet audience?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.

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.

Hello to all my future sports media moguls. If you’re anything like me, when you were growing up, you watched a lot of sports on television. When I was a little kid, I wanted to be the next Tom Brady, or LeBron James, and while those dreams felt achievable as a small child, my coordination and size had different plans. Since I was a below average athlete who wasn’t blessed with a 6’5″ frame, when I graduated high school, I decided to follow in a path of something I was actually good at, math. That lasted for two years, but the whole time my passion for sports was still burning stronger than ever. One day during a calculus class, I realized that a career in math would never truly make me happy, and I decided to once again pursue my dreams in sports, but this time from the sidelines as a media member. I switched my major to communications media production and set off on my new journey. What I quickly realized however, is that things in the media industry aren’t just handed to you. While I wasn’t prepared for the challenges ahead of me, I hope others can look to this blog for advice as you embark on your own journey in to sports media.

The first challenge you face as a media student looking to break into a crowded industry is making connections in your desired field. When I started in communications media, I knew what I wanted to do, but didn’t know anyone who could help me achieve my goals. If you’re currently a student in the same position, I know that whether it is finding peers who share your interests, or trying to find opportunities to get media experience, the beginning of your journey can be very overwhelming. Don’t lose hope though, as the perfect opportunity could be right around the corner.

If you are currently enrolled in a college or university, the first step to networking on campus is to look for clubs and other extracurriculars in your field. I know that joining a club, whether it be radio, tv, photography, ect.., can seem overwhelming on top of the school work you already have, but the only way to network on campus is to meet like minded individuals. I was apprehensive to school clubs at first, but once I decided to give the student-run radio at my school a try, I discovered a passion for sharing my thoughts and ideas with an audience on the radio. I also got to meet a lot of cool people who have graduated and begun careers in media. The people you meet in school can later become vital assets as you begin your job search.

Another way to network that seems obvious, but is overlooked by so many young people, is just to talk to people. Making friends in your classes can really only lead to positive results. You never know, the guy you were nice to in photography 101 may be looking for partners in a media venture down the road, and if you never took the time to say hello, that’s an opportunity that you missed out on without even knowing it. An example from my own life, I was talking to a classmate about my future career goals one day walking out of class, I mentioned a company that I hope to work for in the future. He just so happened to be working with that company already as a campus ambassador and was looking for more students to help with the social media accounts. Because I decided to talk to my peers, I now get to help with social media accounts linked to my dream company and have made a whole new network of sports media focused students from universities across the country. Never overlook opportunities to make new connections.

These are just a few suggestions to start networking on your road to sports media. Just taking these first few steps can go a long way toward helping you find a career after graduation. If you are passionate about what you want to do in life, it shows and people are more likely to relate to someone who pursues their passion. My question to readers is; what are you doing to start your path towards your dream career?

Comment your answers and share the blog with your friends so we can go on our media journey together.