Again, I apologise for my absence over the past few months... University really does get you tied up!
I've been so busy on my work placement at university... I've been placed in my university's Digital Marketing department, one of the internal placements I chose, and immediately I already got out filming and taking photographs... I was working with few other students and I was elected as the team leader, which meant I had to take control of pretty much everything; contacting the manager of the department, contacting companies, societies and sports clubs to get filming permissions, arranging meeting dates, arranging filming dates and locations and just basically ensuring that everything is running smoothly!
We came across few problems where some of the students were unreliable, they didn't reply to my messages on their progress, they didn't come to the filming sessions I arranged and I felt so frustrated. Although, I did manage to have one of them who's totally reliable, and it felt more like a partnered job... We went out filming and taking photographs together, we discussed on the work and we kept in touch with the department and our course tutor.
Personally, I did have problems in the placement such as a common deaf problem in meetings... I couldn't understand the manager of the department so my 'partner' had to take over and she would tell me what I missed out after the meeting. She's really supportive, although I do feel guilty for making her do the work for me as a deaf person... But I had to make sure that I was doing my leader role most of the time, so contacting people was easy because I just used emailing methods and sometimes social media sites.
So far, I think that the placement is not too bad, but it doesn't feel like I'm working. It still felt like one of student's coursework, just making a promotional video for the department, compared to working in a studio in a real company, which I bet that the other students are doing from my course. Originally, I wanted to work related with graphic design or photography as they both are my main skills but I did want to try at filming. It's just the matter of unreliable people and we're first year students so we didn't know much about video editing so we couldn't achieve an 'awesome' video...
Other than university, my social life is going great. I've been meeting up with deaf friends a lot, so it was like an escape from the hearing world. Recently, we went to Center Parcs for the Ear Foundation's annual event, as two of my friends were volunteering to answer questions on their experiences for the parents in a conference. The weekend was fantastic, it was so nice to take time off that stressful university life and just social with people. Again, I was also the leader of that group, so I had to take charge in activities and plan, and booking table reservations in restaurants and sorting out food bills! I guess I was born to be a leader...
