Trust, a transition between school and the professional world.
Put all the odds in my favor.
My name is Terry Soleilhac, and currently, I’m working as a freelance motion designer at Green Garden Digital, a content creation agency focused on lifestyle, sports, and entertainment. The framework is set, the heart of the matter is coming right away.
After spending 3 years on the benches of a digital creation school, it was time for me to try the Gobelins to integrate their motion graphics course. In my eyes, it was the Holy Grail both by their reputation and by the level that emerged from the demo tape of former students. Positive environment, with daring and rigorous people, what a dream!
I really wanted to join their school. Everything was organized, everything was planned. I was so eager to succeed and impress them that I worked tirelessly on my interview. For example, I had contacted a multitude of former students to discuss with them how they felt and to better understand the future questions asked by the jury.
What was my professional project in the short and long term? Why motion design? I felt that I needed to build and develop a confident and solid pitch. I also chose to follow the teachings of my pitching teacher “Sale with Impact” Greg Germann during my studies at UCLA, in Los Angeles. I had to be confident and give everything I had to achieve my goal.
Failed interview?
“At the time, I was frustrated.”
What was my reaction when the jury, after the interview and observation of my portfolio/reel, remarked to me that I might get bored at their place. At the time, I was frustrated. Confused, angry, I didn’t understand their choice, I wanted to make a transition from the school world to the professional world. I saw a potential that was just waiting to be developed in a company. I could explain to them that motion design would never bore me, that it represented continuous gymnastics and that nothing could frustrate me if I worked on even so-called “executive” projects.
“We knew it was coming.” my parents said.
After much reflection, it is with you that I share this article. I will always remember my parents’ reaction when I called them 10 minutes after the interview, hot, frustrated, lost. “We knew it was coming.” What do you mean you suspected? “There was a time in college when you never really cared about it anymore. “It’s a pivotal time in your life when you have to make choices and trust yourself. What if alternation wasn’t for you? You could start working right now?”. Those words scared me. Work? Leaving the student world feeling unfulfilled? Change and the unknown are events that frighten us as much with the uncertainty as with the doubt they bring. When I saw my friends one after the other getting involved in working life, leaving the childish benches of school, I saw them, full of self-confidence, settling down, having their apartments, living their lives away from their parents.
“Be confident, Terry.”
What if they’re right? Starting out in the workforce didn’t mean stopping my training. It meant continuing in a different and perhaps more appropriate environment. That didn’t prevent me from training myself as I had been able to do alongside my studies, with online training, on Youtube, and other sites rich in resources and advice. And unconsciously deep down inside, I was ready but without knowing it?
The lessons that could be learned from this would be to learn to trust each other. By being confident, a new attitude emerges and makes you a new person. In this way, I learned not to devalue my projects anymore, on the contrary, to be proud of them. Alternation is just one way like any other to integrate the professional world and to “discover”. I say “discover” because the term can provide so much inspiration and imagination. It is a way to meet the unknown, the countless possibilities.
And what if what the jury told me at the end of the interview was more than ever the truth? I have the ability to start working. I can do it even if there will be obstacles and difficult moments. I can do it I can do it.
