It has been a while since I last wrote. It is a strange time at the moment. Term was only 9 weeks long and then the program was effectively done with a 6 week placement left to go. The last term was at best a bit of a blur but I am now starting to see why we were pushed out into the real world so quickly. It is so important to make a concerted effort to keep learning and acquiring knowledge.
The multidisciplinary nature of interactive multimedia is such that we try to learn so many new skills in a short time span that we end up not knowing one thing really well. This reiterates the necessity to keep learning and building knowledge long after academic life.
I am now about a week and a half into my work placement which has been educational and very enjoyable. Seeing how design and development are tackled outside of school is a different world. Many times I have heard fellow students eagerly talking about setting up a business right after graduation. I hope the experience of work placement does enough to convey that this is actually a really tough job to do and should be tackled realistically. The organizational and administrative efforts alone of managing clients and accounts are definitely one thing to consider first and foremost.
Working alongside exceptional designers and developers could be enough to intimidate but if anything I am becoming more and more inspired every day. Being the only woman on the floor has also made me realize how largely male dominated the field of multimedia still is. Still, no great surprise there, especially when we see how undoubtedly the male gender has influenced the internet as we know it today. I do hope to see more women working in multimedia, making their mark in this field and changing the internet’s stereotypical male image. I certainly want to be one of them.
