MSVC 206 - Media In Practice - Blog

Media In Practice - MSVC 206 – Blog.

This document is going to present my self-evaluation throughout my last academic year, highlighting my strengths and weaknesses and in conclusion ways to improve. Also explored in this document is my chosen field of employment the reasons behind wishing to pursue it and stated are the skills and qualifications I will need to gain before achieving my dream career. Included also is a interview with a current lecturer which helped gain a real understanding on my chosen future career. Finally this document ends with the insight into the media industry we have had the experience to witness through our media in practice module.

This section will self-evaluate my academic last year. Throughout the time studying Media studies and visual cultures I have especially enjoyed learning the theories, feminism in general, as I have enjoyed learning the history of the suffragettes and being educated on the fight women have had in order to try and gain equality to men, especially post-feminism where women are seen as equal. I have enjoyed experiencing myself improve academically. Learning to plan my essays from introduction to conclusion has been a massive help and made the word counts as well as content less daunting. Learning to write academically has also been a positive and enjoyable experience, which has reflected in my grades. Another positive matter throughout the course is the career I aim to achieve, before starting the course I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I am now aiming to become a teacher or a lecturer. It has given me an insight into the media industry and helped me decide on a career in which I want to pursue. There are many ways in which I’ve changed and improved during the last year. The most beneficial factor in how I’ve changed is welcoming and enjoying being more responsible and for the first time in my life, becoming organised which I now fully rely on in order to go about my day. Another big factor in how I’ve changed is my effort I have applied to my degree, the want to do well and taking pride in every task I complete academically, I really care about my grades and I want to do as well as possible, so throughout the last year I have gained so much ambition and am now very proud of myself and the work I am doing. A big way in which I’ve also changed is my attendance. This year and last term I hardly missed any lecturers, which reflects in my work, as well as my knowledge, which I think is a very big improvement. I think my strengths lie in organisation in regards to organising myself appropriately for lectures, for example having read the notes needed for the days lecture as well as having a general background knowledge on the topic being taught that day. This has been beneficial as it gives me a greater understanding on the subject. Another strength in relation to the course is in assignments that we innovate a title for. For example, in the Gender and Sexuality content analysis essay, I seem to have more strengths than in an essay with a specific question. I also have good strength in researching information, whether it is on theories or gaining information in preparation for my assignments. The core strength I have is the effort I give to any task, from constructing essays to researching relevant information, organising myself or the tasks we’re given in class. I always try the best to my ability. The ways in which I feel I have been restricted in achieving is due to with my lack of confidence, which is slowly beginning to improve. I feel it has hampered my learning due to being really shy when it comes to the classroom, which has effected my interaction in class topics. My lack of confidence in my ability has also been a negative aspect, due to spending time worrying on failure and my lack of ability instead of concentrating on my strengths. Another issue I feel has hampered my learning is the failure to answer the question properly. Instead of answering what the assignment title is asking me, I tend to write all I know on the subject instead of answering any question. A definite disadvantage I have, through no fault but my own, is the attendance at the start of the course, due to personal reasons, which has left me without the basic knowledge on approaching media studies and cultural studies. I have seen the error of my ways and completely changed yet I am still effected by the lack of attendance, especially in relation to analysing text, which I have always had a weakness in. There are many ways in which I can improve for next year, which would start with my self-belief. Hopefully the hard work I put into the last assignments will give me confidence academically so I continue to strive to be better and continue to work hard. I also think building my confidence will help me in every aspect of my life, especially academically. I think this could be achieved by interacting in class more, which will make presentations less daunting, also by reading further in academic books will help with my confidence, improve my vocabulary and improve my work as a whole. Spending more time in the library will hopefully reflect better grades and give a greater understanding. Practicing will be a big way in which I am going to improve. Practicing presentations will be beneficial in order to gain better grades as my work will be more coherent and hopefully my confidence will increase as I will have gone over my work and practiced it to an audience before presenting it in class. Also practicing analysing text will be very beneficial to me as it is a weakness I have and through practice I will gradually become better at it. I have had two jobs since starting my degree as well as voluntary work at a youth club. I did volunteer work at the Woodville youth club which gave me a good insight into working with youth and expanding my interest further as I learned what it involves, as well as expanding my interest in it, it made me feel good about myself and gave my life more substance, it is something I wish to do in the future and benefits me as it looks good on my CV.The first job I had since I moved to Cardiff was in the café in Roath Park, it helped build my CV, confidence and gave me an income, it also was a key factor in structuring my life. Last October I was employed by Soho coffee, I learned to use a coffee machine which will be very useful if I need to find another job, as it is a good skill to have living in a city which has various coffee houses, it was also another job on my CV and helped confidence building as well as being a regular income. It was a very strong base in structuring my life, despite finding it quite difficult to hold down a job as well as writing essays it was very useful to have a job over the Christmas holidays, not only as a sense of an income but also giving me something to do. This next section addresses my chosen future career. The area of media employment that I aim to have a career in is teaching. I am aiming to be lecturer in a college; either media or culture and once I have gained the appropriate qualifications I hope to teach in University. I am aiming to do a full time PGCE over one year after graduating, which stands for Postgraduate Certificate in Education which would develop my teaching skills, the qualifications needed for this are GCSE’s in maths and english language as well as a degree or qualifications to a similar standard. There are various reason why this area of employment interests me. The fact that I would then have a job which would allow me to travel which is a dominant theme in why I wish to pursue this career path. Despite the hard work, it seems like a fun job, I think the prospect of teaching would be enjoyable as I would be closely working with people so it would never be dull or boring. I would also be a factor in watching a young person realise their potential and achieve success, everyday I would be helping somebody conduct their own future which I think would be a really rewarding prospect as well as a fun experience to witness and have a helping hand in. I would also have the freedom and independence in regards to how I teach my students and give them the relevant information they need. In researching becoming a teacher or a lecture I have noticed the creativity in regards to lesson planning. I would have job security, in relation to other media jobs, teachers and lecturers are always needed. This gives me confidence in the career, as I don’t want to train for a job that I have no security in. After gaining some experience, I hope to travel and teach. I have researched the need for teacher’s abroad, especially Australia, under the age of 30 and worked as a teacher for 3 years would more than likely qualify and are in need. Yet before teaching the subject I have studied in I plan to travel the world teaching English as a second language. There are various skills needed within teaching. Planning would be significant within the job description, making sure the lectures have the right valid information the students need, also the information needs to be taught in the most beneficial way for them in order to learn. Housekeeping and recording tasks, for example keeping track of student’s attendance and recording students grades, good house keeping will reflect a good organised class room which will be beneficial in every aspect. Managing student conduct, so students are aware of the rules and disciplines. The consequences for not submitting work and for poor attendance would have to be very clear for the students. Presenting subject material, method of delivery is very important so the students are engaged and not only understand the subject but the subject is as enjoyable as possible in order for people to want to learn. Assessing student learning, whilst the subject is being taught the students would need to be aware in how it relates to their examination, the instruction would be built around assessments and finally meeting professional obligations, for example being at lecture and teacher meetings.

I decided to interview a lecturer in UWIC who’s currently lecturing Media studies and visual cultures, Catherine Davies. She is also a part-time graduate student at UWIC, researching Stardom and Iconic status. Her career did not stem from wanting to become a lecturer, she was interested in film and was working as a film critic, and her choice to go into the direction that she headed in was a choice so that she could nurture her interest in film into other people. Due to there being no direct media studies or film studies courses at that particular time, she opted for teaching so she had the opportunity to combine her love of film and the aspect of teaching a passion to other people in which she found rewarding. Her main link to her career was her love of film and found the one way she could pursue this was to teach. She started with a degree in English and Drama and throughout her degree became heavily interested in the academic prospects of the film and media subjects combined within her degree. After finishing her degree she studied evening classes in a-level media and film and then went on to do her PGCE in further and higher education as she knew the age range she wanted to be teaching, it took her two years to complete this as she was doing it part time whilst still being a film critique. She had work placement in Glan Hafren College, Cardiff, which was unpaid until she was given a paid job teaching a-level students. After teaching at Glan Hafren she then went on to do a post-grad diploma in media and education whilst continuing to teach at Glan Hafren, she taught there for ten years before coming to UWIC to become a lecturer, whilst teaching at UWIC she is also working on her PHD. She has taught for a total of 14 years. Despite her claim that it is not a 9 to 5 job and that your work does continue after hours, and due to popular culture always changing she is always having to update her case studies, she also stressed the hard work that goes into it, the dedication needed and the passion in order to pursue a good state of mind. She also noted it is not a career which brings in that much money. Her positive feedback on being a lecturer was her passion of her subject which still remains with her to this very day, she claimed her passion has been evident within her teaching encouraging students and hoping it will rub off, she has never lost belief in that what she is doing is worthwhile and throughout her career has managed to deepen her understanding on her subjects and feels that she is alive when she’s standing in front of her class teaching. The interview was very positive and beneficial, it deepened my ambition to become a lecturer. After interviewing Cath it made me think deeper into my chosen field, it embedded the hard work and the demanding hours, yet the positive points outweighed the negative and I still wish to continue with this career path. Interviewing Cath was a very positive factor; it gave me a real insight into teaching. This next section will state and explore in an objective manner, jobs within the media industry. Throughout media in practice we have had the opportunity to see into the media industry as we have had various guest lecturers giving us a talk on their career.
In the introductory lecturer the assessment was presented, as well as a briefing on how to produce a bibliography correctly and how to reference appropriately, this was very beneficial as referencing at times can be confusing. In the second lecture we were presented with how to conduct a CV in the correct manner, this was extremely beneficial as I had not included a ‘skills’ section which is vital in order for an employer to see my skills outside of my qualifications. As a class we also looked into the stereotypes that are related to certain jobs. Firstly was Tom Evans, who was from Leeds and managed to get a job in advertising, he presented to us working in advertising and brand communications. He works at the company ‘Ogilvy’ in advertising department. Throughout the talk Tom showcased many advertisements in which his team had made, including Levis and Dove. He also presented the importance of slogans in order to affirm brand loyalty. Hellmann’s and Ford are also clients of Ogilvy. He described his job as dynamic and creative. He had to do team working exercises in his job interview, which included being given a brief and him and his team had to come up with an appropriate advertisement which suited the brief, many people tried out yet he was lucky enough to get the job. Before he managed to get a place at Ogilvy he had taught in Japan as well as doing a degree in film and media.The skills he mentioned for the job would be creativity as well as imagination in order to attempt to create an original advertisement, he also mentioned people would have to be quite thick skinned in the sense of working really hard on an advertisement yet it does not necessarily mean that you would get the slot in order to showcase your advertisement for their product. We were also given the opportunity to see around Media Wales which is a media company belonging to Trinity Mirror. It is based in Cardiff and produces up to 15 newspapers including Wales on Sunday, South Wales Echo and the Western Mail. It also produces magazines including N.W, the women’s magazine. They also have an interactive website which is constantly bringing breaking news. Despite the shift in technology and there now being a website for people to read the news, newspapers still bring in most of the money. We got the opportunity to see throughout the building, from the conference rooms to the open plan rooms which where the different departments were working, from advertising to the editors.

To conclude, I feel I have improved dramatically throughout my degree not only academically but also personally, I feel I have a long way to go and improving my confidence is crucial to every aspect of my life that I intend to work on. I feel like my independence has grown dramatically and I thoroughly enjoy my course. Despite my weaknesses, I am very proud of everything I have achieved, focusing on my strengths and how much I have improved throughout my time studying Media and Culture. I am very happy and positive about the chosen career in which I hope to pursue, I am quietly confident that providing I put a lot of hard work into it I can become a very successful teacher, and I hope one day to go back to education and complete a PHD or definitely involve myself in more education as it has been a pleasant experience. Finally, seeing an insight into different jobs has been useful as I have been able to see into jobs I had never considered yet it only reinforced my existing ideas about the media industry being very competitive, something I am not comfortable with. Seeing other media jobs has also strengthened my ambition to be a teacher as I figure it will be a very suitable and rewarding job for me.



Bibliography

Employment and job opportunities for teachers: Australian migration associates Ltd, Available from: http://www.australiamigrate.co.uk/teachers.htm [accessed: 20/04/09]
Hesmondhalgh, D (2007) The Cultural Industries, London: Sage.
Postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) – postgraduate teacher training – TDA, Available from: http://www.tda.gov.uk/Recruit/thetrainingprocess/typesofcourse/postgraduate/pgce.aspx [accessed: 20/04/09]
‘Your career’ – module on blackboard.