Every term we have one tutorial with our personal tutors (in my case Nicky) where we discuss how we are and how the course is going as well as career prospects and plans for post-Confetti. Together with the tutor, we decide on three SMART targets based around character, career and qualification that we feel are most beneficial to work towards. I had already done these beforehand so it was a matter of catching up with any recent relevant information as well as reviewing my progress based on the targets and course in general.
Term 1 SMART Targets
Career: To complete my brand logo so that I can start directing myself towards freelance work.
Character: To understand when I have done enough work on one specific blog post and move on.
Qualification: To attend a number of different open days at universities I am interested in.
In the tutorial, we talked about why I had set these targets and what my goals were. I want to complete a bachelor’s in animation, specifically 2D if I can, so my main focus in terms of qualifications is university at the moment. I have applied for five different courses at Teesside, Staffordshire, Hertfordshire, Nottingham Trent and the University of Creative Arts and I clarified that I understand what needed to be done to receive as many offers as possible, including things such as my portfolio and target grades. Nicky confirmed that I was on track and asked me how I was coping with the course overall. I’m really enjoying it! I explained that the second year has been much better for me because of the fewer restrictions and events that were/are able to take place. Having teachers and peers around to help has also improved my mental state and made college feel more like it should have since the very beginning, a place where you can have fun, be productive and achieve your goals.
There have been some really stressful periods, however, which I was grateful to have the chance to speak about. Although I am thrilled to have received the Stencil placement, it made it harder to cope with the workload at the time, since four hours were knocked off every week and made me quite tired. It was a brilliant opportunity nevertheless and I would do it again if I had to go back in time and choose; despite being a little stressed out, I handled it and completed my initial contract period. I brought up my perfectionism as another factor of stress since I can be prone to procrastination due to my own high standards. This fed into my ‘character’ SMART target and Nicky reassured me that I was going above and beyond with the blogs and could afford to do a little less and be less hard on myself.
The last thing that we talked about was my concern for my friend Kayla who seemed to be struggling a lot with work due to her personal problems. I now understand that the teaching team are aware of this and she is receiving support from both them and the safeguarding team, which was good to hear.
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I always find the tutorials helpful and similarly with this one, I am much more aware of where I am within these three categories and know what I am aiming for. It benefits me a lot being able to speak to the teacher one-on-one because it is an opportunity to reflect and also discuss any possible issues away from peers. I like that I have this period where we can focus on me professionally, as an individual instead of another student part of the group because I can make adjustments that are tailored for my improvement and help me in the long term.
Update
Since a significant amount of time has passed since the tutorial, I would like to update my targets and document any progress I have made.
To start with career, I have advanced somewhat by completing my logo, as I said I would. However, I also stated that I wanted to start directing myself towards freelance work, which is where things have come to a halt. Frankly, I didn’t expect to be so busy but preparing for university, doing my creative project, keeping up with lesson blogs and numerous personal issues have taken up all of my time these past weeks and I haven’t found any space in my schedule to slot in some branding work. To start freelance, I would need to solidify my online presence by updating all social media and setting a schedule to be as active as necessary on each, and I don’t see any chance of doing so in the near foreseeable future. I am instead going to be shifting my focus on absorbing as much as I can out of the workshops we have outside of the CP so that I can improve my skills further, which directly helps with my career. I will do this by keeping up my current standard of work and pausing any outside projects (such as rebranding) to not get distracted and overwhelmed.
In terms of character, I think this is the target I have made the least amount of progress in, but still enough to comment on. I have been working hard to avoid procrastination and am happy to report that my methods have been effective and unlike last year, I am not behind with the lesson blogs whatsoever (this is a massive step forward for me and something that I’m really proud of)! I have also been trying to shorten my posts where possible and there has been a difference, especially with the publications in the period where we had frequent assessment periods. I was able to prioritize my project time and make them less detailed. However, for some of the CP blog posts, I sense that I am still procrastinating slightly, despite being on top of my A-game with scheduling. I’ve questioned why this is happening and have concluded that I have set slightly unrealistic goals for myself in terms of the project. To avoid burning out and/or not completing work I am going to tweak my schedule and scale back on certain parts of production.
Finally, there is qualification. My goal was to attend open days and try and narrow down my options. A lot has happened since then – I made my choices, corresponded with different unis, created and sent my portfolio through and even attended interviews. I have now received all five decisions back and intend to look at all of my notes from the opens days I went to, and extra research I have done in order to help make the main choice and backup choice. I plan to attend applicant days to help with this. I also need to sort out student finance and accommodation, which I will attempt myself first but attend support sessions that Confetti are providing if need be as well.
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Based on the above, here are my updated targets for Term 2 (I won’t make an official blog post on these until the Term 2 tutorial).
Career: To pause rebranding work and focus on maintaining my current standard of lesson blog posts (mainly skills & production and professional development sessions).
Character: To make changes to my scheduling and final product plans to accommodate the current time delegation in different areas of my life.
Qualification: To review my notes on my uni choices and attend applicant days. If those are completed by the end of the term, sort out student finance and accommodation.