By Forrest Clancy

3 things to do before you come to SCA

As I find myself on the way out, I am inevitably looking back and wondering what I could have done before I came in. Here’s my simple advice to you incomers. 

1. Purchase a year of the Adobe Suite now and learn photoshop, Illustrator, and final cut. 

You will do this anyway in the first week of school, so do it now. I think the single greatest mental challenge that every student here faces is the belief that everyone in the room is better than them at photoshop and illustrator. The best way to overcome this is learn the programs. It doesn’t take too long. Maybe 5 weeks. But spend July and August taking online tutorials and you will accelerate so quickly when you get to SCA. 

Furthermore, the single greatest barrier to making things is the fear of getting lost in Adobe. This fear will never go away, and the problem will get bigger and bigger and bigger until you learn adobe. You will learn adobe at some stage next year, and you’ll probably only learn it once some unfortunate situation forces you too. Avoid this painful struggle by learning it over your stress free summers. 

1. Read a book about how to write SMPs 
2. Write 30 SMPs myself. They don’t have to be good, just write them. 

Knowledge of SMPs and how to write them is a skill that separates the average creative teams from the great creative teams. Don’t get yourself into a situation where you are trying to learn more and more about SMPs too late in the course. 

In term one there will be a lot of weekly briefs that you’re going to want to win, so that you have bragging rights at the pub. Don’t worry about this. These will not help you in your career, at all. Term three is the most important term of the year by far, and your abilities with Photoshop, Illustrator and SMP writing will be arguably the most important things in your life for about 8 weeks. Stick to these three learning curves and you might be OK.