By Ben Golding

Advice For Next Year

So you’ve got a place, or you think you might have one. But its about six months until you start at SCA, and you’re thinking there must be some stuff you can do to prepare yourself other than your scholarship projects. Heres my insider tips on things you can do to prepare yourself in the coming months before SCA. Some people might disagree on some of them, but they can go and write their own SCAB. In no particular order:

• Visit galleries and museums. Go to the weird places no-one else does, it’ll come in handy later.
• Learn Photoshop, quite a bit of After Effects and a little bit of Illustrator. Even copywriters.
• Read books. On everything. Whatever floats your boat, fiction of non, just make sure you read a variety. Aim for at least a book a month. AT LEAST.
• Travel. It enriches your life and helps you see through other peoples eyes.
• Save some money. There will not be enough time for a part-time job, so put a little away now and you’ll be glad later.
• Invest in some decent shoes.
• Look into meditation. Start practicing a little every day to get into the habit. It might feel silly at first, but eventually you’ll love being able to clear your mind.
• Make something every week. I don’t care what it is, a song, a poster, a blog post. I’m sure you’re the kind of person who does this already, but make sure you do.
• Do some exercise. Healthy body = healthy mind.
• Know your enemy. Make it your business to know whats going on in the industry, check out ‘Ads of the world’ and ‘Adland’ as a start.
• Try and get a bit of experience in industry. BBH has a one week work experience system for instance. Ask Marc and I’m sure he can recommend other places too.
• Learn to code. If you can make a website, you are going to be such a babe in the studio. codeacademy is a good place to start.

So thats a few tips and things I wish I had known/done in the run-up to starting SCA. Seems like a lot? You haven’t seen anything yet!