Week 10: In Retrospect
By the time you’re reading this, I just finished the Showcase. First and foremost, congratulation to all the IMM seniors who put blood, sweat, and tears into their projects for the past year. From researching to implementation, we have come so far from our first thesis class in the fall. All the hard work hopefully has paid off in the end!
With that said, I think it’s important to look back on the past semester to reflect on the good and the bad. Let’s start with the bad, so we can get that over with.
The Bad
It was difficult for me to start the podcast. Looking back on the past ten months, it is apparent I could have used my time more wisely. I kept stalling myself from starting because I was afraid of failing and being unable to think of creative and fun content to record. I kept pushing back the dates until I had my own wake up call that catalyzed me to start recording. In the end, all my episodes were recorded, but I have a feeling that starting early definitely would have given me so advantage in the end.
Due to my delayed start recording the episodes, I had to double stack recording sessions which seemed more efficient, but in hindsight proved to be draining. After recording for two hours, I would then proceed two episodes, which was a task for me. It would take me two hours to edit a 30 minute episode because I wanted to make sure it sounded as good as it can. I streamlined my editing workflow, but it still proved to be a very time consuming part of the project. I would definitely record one episode for week every week, so there would be less of a weekly workload.
The Good
I exceeded the original amount of episodes I wanted to record! I let my nerves get the best of me, and I kept shrinking the amount of episodes I wanted to record. Without my professor lighting a fire under me, I would have only produced three podcasts instead of eight. I’m more than content with eight episodes and a live show.
I’m happy about the branding and graphic design work I did for the marketing of the podcast. I’m glad that I was able to make the graphics just as important as the audio. I made sure I wanted to make something bright and eye catching, and I think I achieved that.
My podcast is on Apple Podcasts and Google Play Podcasts, so that’s pretty neat! It definitely felt more official once I was able to host the podcasts on these major platforms. It’s scary though because that means anyone can listen to it and give me bad reviews, but that’s the name of the game!
I’m happy about the variety of topics I was able to cover on the podcast.
For Future IMM Seniors
Create a project from an idea or area that you’re passionate about. This seems like a no-brainer, but it’s important to keep that thought in your mind at all times. Personally, I felt like giving up multiple times throughout the semester, but I kept reminding myself that this podcast is my literal brainchild and I need to nurture it to make sure it flourishes.
Explore different facets of IMM. With a smörgåsbord of courses to take, IMM should become your own academic and recreational playground. Take classes in electronic music if you solely focus on gaming. Take a class on interactive journalism to improve your writing and marketing skills. Take an animation course even if you focus solely on back-end coding. Don’t limit yourself to classes that are specific to the “unofficial” track that you’re on; the skills you learn in those classes might become very useful by the time senior year comes. It’ll help you create a wholesome project and it’ll look good on your résumé.
PLAN PLAN PLAN! This goes without saying, but STAY ORGANIZED! There’s nothing worse than feeling unprepared for certain parts of a project. Keep a journal specifically for thesis, have a google calendar that alerts you when to work on your project, set time.
What I learned from the Showcase
The Showcase felt like ages ago already. I would say that the live show went well! I had 32 people sitting in on the show, with a few people coming in and out, and it was 32 more people than I thought would come. There were a few challenges and mishaps that happened the day of that taught me one valuable lesson.
Don’t leave equipment as a last minute task. I had an hour before the showcase started when I realized I didn’t have a way to record the audio for the live show. I quickly went to the AIMM Cage to check out three zoom recorders, and I thought I was set. What I didn’t realize was that all the zoom recorders were all low-battery and I didn’t have extra batteries to replace them with, so they died 10 minutes into the show. Because of this, I don’t have any recorded material besides the audio I recorded from my phone.
On top of that, I should have had backup ways to record the event. I didn’t even think of doing some sort of live broadcast until my friend suggested it after the show ended. I think that would have been great interactive part of the live show.
As disappointed as I am about not having that audio, it taught me more about event planning.
Future Plans
I loved recording podcasts and having that platform to talk about any topics I want, so I definitely want to continue recording episodes post-showcase. I would just have to adjust how I would record it since I won’t have access to TCNJ’s recording studio after I graduate. If I become the next great talk show host from this, well, I won’t be mad at that.
