Working in media: What should I do with my life?
Writing, media, publishing, PR: working in media… what should you worry about when you’re still in high school?
One of the questions we ponder in Media Bootcamp is ‘what should I do’?
It’s hard enough being in school, completing the final years of senior and trying to work out what you want to do with your life, but how do you discover all the options?
Often mentors are not on hand who are able to answer such industry-specific questions – wouldn’t it be nice if they were!
I was chatting to an author friend, J’aimee Brooker, about this yesterday, and we both absolutely wish there’d been someone to help us out with more answers when we were in high school.
Doing my bit to impart some wisdom, this post is with particular reference to students who love things like media, English, even drama and the arts. In school you’re usually only exposed to a few job types:
- journalist
- author
- radio personality
The really obvious ones, but did you know there’s a whole array of wonderful jobs out there where you can use your love of writing and communications?
Let’s try an exercise.
Aside from media, writing or performing, what are you most interested in, or what do you love? E.g. your dog, red carpet fashion, astronomy, music, blogging, technology, movies, travelling?
Write it down on a piece of paper. Now consider, whatever you have written down, there’s a communications role associated with it! If you love your dog – or more widely, animals – you could end up in a communications role with an organisation that protects and campaigns for animals. You might end up managing their magazine or website. Or perhaps you’ll be in their public relations department, or devise advertising campaigns?
For those who perhaps said technology, well, where should we start? There’s a million tech start-ups who need writers and content creators, or you may end up managing their publicity and writing for a related blog! Maybe you’re into presenting and you love radio – you may not land a gig on your local station, but one bigger – a Blog Talk Radio or YouTube sensation!
Of course, there’s the traditional media stream that you may dwell in too, and that’s great – television news, radio presenting, writing for a magazine, newspaper or digital media, or maybe you’ll talk your way into high places as part of a funky PR team.
The aim of this little spiel is to get you thinking. To get the juices flowing. Don’t get stuck in the mundane or feel like you’re limited, or even that you have to work it all out right now (because you don’t).
Just know there’s awesome opportunities out there where you can combine your talents with your passions in life – keep surrounding yourself the things you enjoy, and it will fall into place.
Working in media – exciting, right?
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You’re welcome to stay in touch or ask questions about working in media – I’m on Facebook, G+ and Twitter, or drop us a line in the comments below.
By Sarah Blinco
