Well, it looks like I’ve made it to the beginning of the end of my Bachelor of Communications (Media) degree. This is the home-stretch. I felt an overwhelming nostalgia (even though it’s only been under three years that we started) entering the seminar theatre we’d spent a lot of Media 1 in. There were several familiar faces, very few I didn’t recognise or hadn’t interacted with. It was a good feeling to see all of us all together again, rearing up to get that damn $19,917.84 piece of paper framed. Oh, boy. Bet your bottom-dollar I’ll be putting the precious parchment on my wall and replicating it for the entirety of my family to put on theirs too. As a central feature for their homes. Jokes aside, I’m absolutely stoked to have pushed through this far, whilst juggling several jobs, deaths in the family, interning and living in a sharehouse. I reckon I need to pat myself on the back. Because, go me! Go all of us! We’ve done well.
During the hour-long mini lecture, we were introducted to the course outline for the semester. There are two major assignments called Future You (40%) and Future Media (60%). Future You is an individual task regarding each student’s personal direction into the field of media. Future Media will be a group task, where we have to collaboratively create a media object and present it to some head honcho media mavericks! Scary, but I’m excited. I also don’t have any ideas yet. But I’m sure they will reveal themselves during the planning process and lead up.
Last semester was really stressful for me, for a multitude of reasons. But I have a really good feeling about this semester. Aside the more personal aspects which led me into an absolute state last semester, a lot of my stress was from me not being sure which direction I’m headed in after this degree. I considered the idea of doing Honours, but then I realised I need a break. The thought of it alone made me stressed. I convinced myself I needed to do it. But I don’t need to do it, not right away at least. Maybe not at all. No one’s forcing me to AND it’s an ungodly amount of money. I mean, is it really worth it? I want to break-free from the racket of the tertiary education system and do stuff for me. I don’t want to rely on my family for financial support. I want to do my own thing and be even more independent than I already am. I want to work on projects with friends and creatives. I want to explore. If it comes to it, I don’t even mind working several hours in a retail job that isn’t relative to my degree – because there’s no point beating myself up about not being where I invision myself because there’s still so much time in life to find something. It will present itself and I will remain diligent, but I have to learn to give myself a break. Because it’s something I’ve only recently been able to recognise after often pushing myself at uni in to an extremely anxious state because I convince myself I won’t do well in the work I complete for my classes. I’m just ready to get some things in my life, in order and then go from there. I need to save money. I want to fix my sweet little surface-rusted navy blue 1998 manual Toyota Starlet with no power steering, that’s been sitting in my driveway for about 2 years, untouched… (now with a battery that needs a jump-start as well). I took photos of the blue jean baby preparing to sell it. But I just don’t have the heart to do it. Most of all though, I want to travel! I haven’t been anywhere asides New Zealand and Australia. Oh, and more recently, Fiji with some of the family… So, it’s time to start getting serious about that.
In our tutorial which followed the lecture, every student had to tell the class where they see themselves in 5 years time. Last semester that question would have panicked me beyond belief. Now, it was fine. I didn’t feel like I needed to prove to anyone that I had a straight-and-narrow plan. I’m currently interning at Encapto WiFi and learning more tech-based information which I never imagined myself doing, it’s been super interesting so far. I’m working at Scavengers secondhand store which I love, I’m managing their social media too. It’s a small business, but I really enjoy having the ability to improve their business by doing something which even mildly incorporates my degree-learnt (possibly also generation-learnt, more generally) skills. So, I told the class that I want to continue my relationship with secondhand store retail and build on that social media aspect as well. I also am able to utilise their stock for photo and video shoots which is a really wonderful opportunity to help them but also myself. I am feeling positive about how things are going at the moment.
As it’s all about the future of us here in Media 6, I think that’s really reassured me too. It’s helping us develop and apply ourselves into the media workplace. It will make us build a portfolio and prepare us for the real world (really had to suppress the pun-mindframe in me from writing ‘reel world’ just then. Sue me).