World of Work Bronze Statement

The World of Work is a big thread throughout the third year of our course and the 3 section are all important to completing the awards. The Bronze statement is all about understanding and knowing yourself. It is about realising your strengths and knowing what you could do to improve. You are expected to choose 3 key strengths and give examples of times that you have used them.

I started working on the Bronze statement this month and I booked in a submission date for myself so that I would have a deadline to work to. I created a statement and sent it to Liz Harrison, who kindly looked though it and helped me make some changes so that I could cut it down to the work count. Here is my Bronze statement that I sent off and I am now awaiting feedback:

Understanding and Knowing Yourself

My three personal strengths of value in a future media career are time management, organisation and dedication. I aim to work for in media, preferably for a company that creates animations. These strengths would aid me in getting a role in a company and secure my position as a valued member of a team. An example of when all of these skills were utilised together was when I worked in a team to create a TV show in just over 2 months. I personally created the schedule that my team agreed on for working hours and meeting times. We chose were required to choose a local guest so I set up meetings with various guests and contacted them regularly to meet up to discuss details of the filming. The dedication to this project is evident in the hard work that I put in for even the small details such as cue cards for the presenter and the shot sheet describing the camera angles. My grade in this module was a 1^st overall reflecting my hard work and commitment throughout.

An area which I would like to improve is my mind set in stressful situations. I am not always the calmest person and sometimes the pressure of work or deadlines can make me anxious.This is because I always want to do my best and I put too much pressure on myself to do so. To manage this in my final year I plan to look at one project at a time and manage the workload through my time management skills. I will arrange regular meetings with my personal tutors because I know that these meetings always help me focus and not become too daunted by the tasks ahead.

Work Values, Motivation, Drive and Energy

I am always willing to work hard; whether it is for a part time paid job or unpaid work for experience in my chosen field. For example, I work for the Students Union as a Digital Content Producer; creating work for their website and advertising systems. It definitely helps that I am interested in the work as this gives me job satisfaction unlike my more mundane part time restaurant job. I would thrive on a job in the animation industry where I could gain satisfaction in working creatively. Big or small; any job related to a final outcome where I can say I played a part in creating a piece of media would be worthwhile to me. Working my way up in a company or even just having different jobs to do will keep me motivated in terms of striving to create work and learning every step of the way. In the media, technological advances mean that I need to be constantly finding new ways to create media and so my dedication to my chosen area would benefit me greatly.

My greatest personal achievement to date is my Bronze, Silver and Gold Duke of Edinburgh awards. My time management, organisation and dedication all first blossomed in secondary school and higher education through the Duke of Edinburgh. Even through the trials and tribulations of the hard work that is needed to complete these awards; I had fun and really learned about myself. I became an efficient team leader, I learned how to read maps and I even learned about my own physical ability. The Duke of Edinburgh awards really make me proud because it is something that makes me stand out in the crowd

My reward for doing this amazing course was meeting the Duke of Edinburgh himself in the palace in London and I also have certificates and medals as proof of the best time of my childhood.

Relating to Others

Working for the Students Union is very much a team effort. Last year I worked on  5 projects with two other students who also do media courses. We were all very motivated and excited to do the work because we knew that it would look great for our future employers. Being friends with my two teammates did help the work but this also made it difficult to confront them when something was not going to plan.

For the most part, we worked hard together and divided the roles of camera operator, photographer, editor, organiser and communicator equally so that we all took turns doing each of these. We wanted each other to get the best out of the experience, and not just think about ourselves.

However, on 2 occasions I was faced with the problematic task of confronting one of the group about their selfishness when it came to some of the work. The situation occurred when we were filming in a boxing gym for a sports promotional video. One of the team decided that they would do most of the filming which I didn’t personally agree with. I talked to the person privately after the session to express my view and to listen to their viewpoint. I calmly talked to both group members and said that I think the camera tasks should be split more evenly and that we need to take into consideration each other’s skills and use them to our advantage. This solved the issue and from this point forward we were back to working as a solid team again.

My Future Planning

I believe that my skills and experience within the media would allow me to achieve my goal of securing a job in a media company. I need more training in the area of animation but I intend to start this process during my final year. I aim to look for courses that I can take to improve my drawing and technological skills. I will also use the sessions at university to practice with the technology and attend tutorials. After I finish university I am considering doing another BA in Animation. Doing Media Professional Studies has opened my eyes to the specific area of the media that I would like to enter. 

Speak Soon!