I like watching videos and reading posts of people sharing their experiences that they go through. It always felt like the best avenue to take if I was going to be in a similar situation. I mean, word of mouth is incredibly powerful. When I joined the Navy, I watched countless videos of people talking about how bootcamp was for them or how their first deployment was miserable. Even to this day I go back and watch those types of videos.
I’ve now moved on to college, but my habits followed. When I first decided to attend Full Sail University, my first instinct was to go to YouTube and look for current and former student experiences to see what I could expect. Maybe I wasn’t searching correctly, but I did not find a lot of material to watch. I thought, why not contribute to this trend when I start. At least there will be one more person that could help future applicants like me to give an idea of what we will go through.
In my typical fashion, I completely ignored that though the next day and here I am a year later, finally talking about my experience and what I have learned so far.
Before I started college I would hardly call myself a writer. I didn’t put words on paper (or pixels on the computer) that made any sense. The extent of my “writing” were loose plot hooks and outcomes for my Dungeons and Dragons games. I just thought that was part of the DMing experience. It wasn’t until I created my first homebrew that I actually wrote down the bare bones of a story. Even then, it was just bullet points and character motivation.
The first few months of my academic career were enlightening and full of motivation. At first I had very little expectations. My research into Full Sail was limited, so I just had to feel it out for myself.
The first few classes taught me how to structure my sentences while sprinkling in some proper grammar tips. I was also given some challenges that I didn’t think would last long but I am still doing to this day. Challenges like, limiting adjectives and adverbs or finding ways to make dialogue speak for itself and sticking to he said/she said dialogue tags. Already, these two challenges have changed my writing for the better in my opinion.
The next few months took a weird turn that I didn’t expect or fully understand at first. I am going to college to be a writer and all of a sudden I am learning about the Adobe Creative Suite and how to make films, audio dramas, and other multimedia presentations. I didn’t come here to be a film student. That was a completely different program. After a few more lectures, the instructors really hammered in that, in this day and age, being just a writer isn’t good enough. You have to possess other skills to make yourself marketable and ultimately hireable after graduation.
I did enjoy these classes, but I am still struggling to find what I like to do the most and create more multimedia content.
These last few months have been a bit demotivating. I really haven’t written anything substantial. Mostly some pitch decks and story bibles for some projects that maybe or may not see the light of day anytime soon or at all. The classes have been more focused on the after graduation process, creating a portfolio and getting hired. The truths of the industry have been talked about. I am told that in order to make it in the entertainment industry, there are some standard and expected actions that need to be taken that I am not willing to do. But in life, never say never, so I’ll be open minded to see what the future holds.
Don’t get me wrong, it is valuable information but obviously I’d rather be writing something. With all my focus on these classes and other responsibilities, my writing has taken a backseat. Fortunately, my current class has given me some freedom to create my own content, hence the creation of this blog.
I am only about halfway through my program, so I still have a lot to learn. My upcoming classes are keeping me optimistic that my creativity will be able to shine again and hopefully bring back my motivation.