What I Learned from My First Digital Media Classes
Most people either walk into their first digital media class with their head held high because they are confident in their creative abilities or they walk in staring at the ground because all of a sudden they realize that there are so many other creative people and they have no idea where they stand.
I walked into my first class somewhere in the middle.
Then we were assigned our first project: create a video story about your summer. The only rule was that we could not be in it.
I walked out of that class staring at the ground.
I felt so lost because I had no idea where to start or where to go once I started. But once I began to compile videos from my summer, I got a little excited.
This is the first thing I learned from intro classes in digital media: sometimes you will feel completely lost and excited at the same time. It takes some time, but eventually, that will work to your advantage. The excitement will pull you out of feeling lost and something great will come out of it.
After finishing that project, I held my head a little bit higher.
One of the next projects was to create an audio advertisement with a partner. The partners were chosen at random, and I had never talked to my partner before we were assigned to collaborate. We ended up working very well together, and it made me want to talk to and work with the rest of my classmates as well. That leads to the second thing I learned from these classes: it’s important to talk to everyone you can. I have learned to love talking to people and learning about them and from them. It will start to benefit your grades and creative success in a short period of time. I began walking into my class with my head up even more.
Then, I had to create a silent film with two other classmates. After filming I panicked because the videos would not play on my computer. I went straight to my professor’s office hours and told her what happened. She immediately knew what went wrong and showed me how to fix it. This helped me discover my third point: sometimes you need to ask for help. It sounds cliche, but in this field you can not be afraid to be vulnerable to others and admit when you are struggling. It is amazing how much influence another person can have and the wealth of knowledge they can share. Seeking help and support will only inspire and guide you further.
Every time I learned a new lesson, it helped me to approach my classes with more confidence in myself and my abilities.
The final and most important thing I learned is that you can always do it. No matter how lost you are feeling or how overwhelming the project may seem, you can always do it. When you choose to take digital media classes, you choose to think in ways you have not before. You choose to struggle to come up with an idea and you choose the excitement you feel when that idea comes to life.
You choose to do it because you want to do it.
