The big five: By @BeaaaBergman
By Bea Bergman
The big five:
Time is running out and in just a couple of weeks we finish our course at SCA. Even though we won’t be coming in for master classes, the learning from SCA won’t end here.
I knew very little of the school when I first applied, a slightly bit more when I started, and now I think I’m more confused then I was going in to it. This is great, it simply means that as I have changed the school have changed with me.
For my last scab as an SCA student I wanted to share my big learnings this year, about the school, myself and the industry.
The first thing I learnt was to question everything and not trust someone else’s research. I think it has taken me until now to truly apply it to everything I do, and still I find my self struggling to know sometime if it was right or wrong to ignore or embrace someone’s advice.
The second thing I learnt was the importance of being a playful child and balancing that with using structured techniques to come up with the best ideas. Again, I think this is something that people at many times had to remind me of. The problem is it’s very easy to fall out of being a playful child when the pressure is on, but the second you loose that you loose your creativity. Using the techniques is another thing that has taken me a lot of time to master. At the beginning I was convinced it was not for me, but like everything else, practice will get you there.
The third thing I learnt was that networking, no matter how uncomfortable, is key for building your own brand. In an industry full of amazing creatives, amazing talent and amazing work, the only way to stand out is by being true to your own brand and to sell it like your one of a kind. As a student, your work will be beyond shit. Unless you came out of some mutated advertising womb that made you great from start, then you are only going to get hired based on who you are and what makes you different.
This is the one thing I have neglected the last couple of months, and it has only made things harder now.
The fourth big thing I’ve learnt is, no one will believe in you unless you believe in yourself. Many times through out the year have I lost faith in myself. It has driven me to points where I almost had to leave SCA and move back to Sweden. It has sucked the life out of me, but it has taught me to fight for myself.
The last big learning I wanted to share, is to do every brief that comes your way, AND THEN SHOW IT TO PEOPLE. One of my biggest regrets this year is that I have let my insecurity get in the way of feedback that could have made me learn and realise things quicker. Unless it has been a strictly copy brief, I have not turned down one brief. Sometimes I have put my heart in it, sometimes I could have done more. But a lot of the times all these briefs have been a complete waste of my time, simply because I didn’t share it with anyone. The amount of SMPs I’ve written without ever knowing if they were any good. It frustrates me how ignorant I’ve been letting the fear of failure get in the way of my learnings. I believe I could have been where I am now 4 months ago, if I just would have showed my work to people.
If I could have given ‘September 2015 me’ any advice, this is the scab I would have written for myself. I still believe I can make up for lost time, but it would have been nicer to have spent it wiser.
So if you are a future student of SCA, don’t let insecurity and stupidity come with you to this course. It will end up making the course a lot more expensive.
