Hopefully, it was clear that my title is playing off of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. But if not, it certainly is now.

It is the fifth week of the semester, which means the time for ‘beginning’ has passed. Deadlines in nearly all of my classes are fast approaching, whether it be for a research project or essay. Interacting with those around me, it’s clear that my schedule is not the only one in a tumultuous state. Both professors and students are facing a demanding part of the semester.

So what do I do when much of my internships requires the time of these busy people? Go where they are. It certainly saves me time to send out a few e-mails and find content for my next post in my inbox, but I’ve had to spend more time recently meeting with people in person, catching them in their spare moments.

In-person interviews naturally take up more of my time, but I’m learning that adapting to different circumstances is what makes a good employee (or student, or intern). If I ignore the need to take that extra step, my tasks simply won’t be accomplished. The responsibility is on my side, to make the extra effort. This is a lesson I hope to carry to work I do in the future, at law school and beyond.

It is always easier to blame the outside factor: he didn’t respond to my e-mail or she wasn’t available during her office hours. I always want to be an individual who goes above and beyond, even when it might mean sacrificing some extra time on these busy days.

This week at my internship, I actually had an agenda and a list of work that needed to be done, which was helpful for me since I usually am goal-oriented. I met my other supervisor, Victoria, and instead of feeling anxious walking into the building like last week, I actually felt comfortable and ready to tackle on whatever was needed of me this particular day.

Instead of color changing jackets, I ended up color correcting/editing swimwear bottoms on Photoshop for just about the entire day. I have surprisingly gotten really skillful at color correcting even though I only just learned it a week ago and Photoshop is not the program I typically use. I also did a little bit more ‘weaving’ and overall, it was another generally relaxed and calm day.

Something I noticed though was the amount of collaboration that circulated throughout the entire company. Everyone within the creative team was constantly asking each other for opinions and communication was a great deal amongst them. Not only that but even though they produce the creative side of things, they also work equally with the other parts of the company as well. Group projects are emphasized to a certain point at Stetson but I was really able to see more of this while at Rox Volleyball this week. Collaboration is more than just working on a project together; it can be anything from getting others opinions, to clarifying on what is needed/wanted, to even just asking how someone does a particular thing. Their collaboration is what makes their entire team so successful and it helped me realize that group projects/collaborating is not as dreadful as it has always seemed.

At a recent internship meeting, during that pre-business chat that occurs when you first sit down in the morning, Laura Glander mentioned how her father writes his books in Microsoft Word instead of the programs preferred by publishing companies. As an English major, this subject fell more into my field of knowledge than ceramics or stage lighting, right? Not quite.
I find the publishing world extremely interesting, and if I weren’t heading to law school after graduation, I would likely have aimed for a job in the industry. Despite that interest, I know little of the technical side. My knowledge lies more in the formatting and editing expertise.

The morning conversation at our internship meeting turned into a lesson on different softwares and the computer programming that’s in play behind the scenes. This was news to me as both a computer user and a writer. It helped me understand the issues that can be present in the more common and “user-friendly” software programs like Microsoft Word. I had encountered such issues myself, like having random percentage signs and backslashes appear when I copy and pasted a text. I had not understood the error behind the problem before.

I will never be a computer programmer, but I am grateful that through this internship I can learn about some of the behind-the-scenes systems at play in the world around me. And who knows! If I’m drawn back to publishing some day, there could be much more learning to come.

Well winter break is over and I’m officially back in the swing of things. I’m so excited to continue my videography internship with Stetson Marketing. Last semester came with many opportunities that challenged me to become better in several areas of Digital Arts. A novice at capturing and editing footage I was so grateful for the patience of the Marketing staff, professor, and students I interviewed.  I admit I wasn’t pleased with a lot of things, but since I’m back I have time to improve.

I’m looking to further my skills in Adobe Premier, Audition, and After Effects while keeping the footage creative and simple as possible. I believe I spent too many hours on certain things last semester because I was learning how to operate it. Now that I’m familiar with it I can work at steady pace.

Focusing on ideas of my own last semester, I’m excited to say that this semester I’ll be working alone side with Michael as we capture stories such as Stetson’s SPREE and Honor’s programs. I’ll still have the opportunity to capture things I love, but the structure and deadlines will help me to focus and know exactly what to produce. It will also introduce me to events happening around campus.

For example, over the break I had the opportunity to edit footage for Stetson’s Farming Tour. It was great to learn how Stetson is and has partnered with Sustainable Synergy to supply healthy food options to students. Editing this video made me aware of local farms around Volusia county and ways to contribute to healthier lifestyles.

Overall, I believe this semester will expose me to things I rarely experience and allow me to network with some amazing people. I’m up for the journey and looking to deliver great work.

Today, I started my internship at Rox Volleyball in St. Augustine. I went into it having a vague idea of what the environment might be like, which was relaxed but also full of busy and strenuous work. This idea was quickly corrected though once I walked through the door.

I was instantly approached by an upbeat and energetic man who thankfully helped me around the building (after I had gotten lost twice already) and introduced me to my supervisor, Matt. I then proceeded to meet everyone apart of the team and got an official tour around the offices/warehouse. (I also got to experience how they start off their days there, which involves playing hacky sack and talking about their goals for the day). Since I’m only able to go in-office on Fridays, the days are generally pretty relaxed and everyone is already mentally prepared for the weekend.

For my first day, I learned how to color change some of the Rox Volleyball jackets in Photoshop and I also learned other information that I did not quite utilize that day, but I will in the future. I was taught about solvent printing and how to ‘weave’ out a design/logo so it then can be placed onto an article of clothing. The day was exceptionally quiet and it mainly involved me getting settled into the new environment but nonetheless, I did learn an exceptional amount of new knowledge on my first day and I am excited to see what the future holds as well.

Last week, I meet with artist Jessica Rath so I could write a feature on her exhibition, A Better Nectar, currently being displayed at the Hand Art Center. Interviews are always interesting as I have the opportunity to ask someone about their work. I had been looking forward to this one for the same reason, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Rath and I had more to discuss than my pre-typed questions.

A Better Nectar is inspired by the idea of seeing the world through a bee’s eyes. Rath spent time studying bees and their environments while working on the exhibition, and she believes strongly in taking individual responsibility to care for other species. She has even altered her plans for the future so that she can spend three months out of the year restoring her family’s farm.

While discussing this, I mentioned my own family’s farming experience. My grandfather inherited an orange grove that has been run by my relatives for roughly sixty years. It is now the last orange grove in the Floridian town I am from, where citrus used to be a thriving business. The dwindling number of farmers is greatly connected to the introduction of citrus greening, a disease transferred by small insects that prevents fruit from fully ripening. The oranges are left watery, soft, and bitter-tasting from the disease.

Rath then discussed permaculture with me, explaining how she researched the flora that bees were attracted to. There is a small wasp that eats the insects spreading citrus greening, and she advised me that planting the types of greenery that attracted the wasps could be beneficial.

I did not expect such an interview to go past friendly conversation. Now I’ve learned not to limit my interactions to the expectations I may have beforehand.

Final exams are happening and the semester is ending, which means I have published my last post until next year. Before I finish my internship blog for the year as well, I wanted to document one more lesson I’ve learned.

I posted earlier about how I’ve learned about not just managing my own time, but trying to work around the schedules of others. There was another factor to that learning experience that has been reiterated in these last couple weeks of work.

Trying to collect responses has turned out to be more difficult than I anticipated. I have a very type-A personality, and when my work (or e-mails) pile up, I find it stressful. Thus, I tend to keep my time organized and respond quickly. Many of the posts I have written this past semester required quotes from outside sources, and I have sent quite a few e-mails to collect those quotes. While writing my final post, which included anecdotes from alumni about a retiring professor, I was on a timeline and relying on the responses I received to make up the bulk of the post. A few days went by and only one e-mail had popped up in my inbox. I started to worry. When meeting with my internship supervisors, they spoke of how important it is to know the preferred form of communication of those that you work with. Some never check their e-mail and would respond best to a phone call. Some like a text best. This can save both parties time when information needs to be shared, creating a more effective flow of communication. This is a lesson I hope to take with me as I pursue a career after graduation and have to work with others, participating  in ongoing conversations and trying to contribute my own ideas and work.

Light it up and make it better was my goal of re-editing my videos. This past week I sat for 12 hours to redo my first video. I work on the lighting, audio, along with incorporating b-roll to make the video more interesting. I’ll be honest the quality of the camera and the shots I took weren’t the best, but this is where you live and learn. I don’t know if I should admit that I struggle with perfectionism or maybe it’s excellence I desire. Nevertheless, I long to produce quality work so that in the future people will trust me with more task.

With that said, I was more pleased with the result of the second edit versus the first one. Although there wasn’t much I could do about the lighting I did my best to adjust the audio as much as possible. Upon rendering and playing back the video, I notice a lot of hissing noise during the talking portion of the interview. I thought to myself “I can’t turn this in!” So, I worked to reduce the hiss as much as possible. What I’ve learned while editing video is you won’t get every bad thing out, but you can embellish it. Having thought in the back of my head I didn’t dwell on that one issue as I would have in the past.

I’ve grasped that perfectionism can be confused with excellence and that at times can keep you from delivering product at a decent time. Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be right, but applying skills that help produce results faster can keep work coming to you. I watched how I got caught up in one video that I failed to work on other footage, so things began to pile up. Once I began to receive feedback from supervisors I learned how to multitask more. When that started to happen, I was handed more opportunities. This week along I had the privilege of editing audio which is my main area of study. As much as I had to do before the end of the semester I refused to turn this down.  Maybe I’m a bit ambitious, but taking opportunities can lead to careers, so when I can I give a resounding yes.

Overall, I’m learning to manage my time better, and what’s important to me I will work diligently at it until the great results are delivered.

How do you take interesting footage and turn it into works of art? That’s been a question I’ve been asking for weeks as I diligently attempt to do so. With every angle done within each edit, I’ve learn to polish the most difficult ones.  My last post I mention the critiques received from my supervisors and how helpful they were. Well this week I sat down for my first redo and I incorporated various things to make the footage I had better.  I was working on a video for Dr. Paul Croce and what was 3 minutes became 1. Although my attempt was to get it to 20 seconds, by the time I added credits I ended up at 1 minute. I said to myself if this doesn’t work I’ll revisit, but I was pleased with the results. Now of course if I receive feedback saying fix I’ll do so, but I honestly think this will work better.

Now that I have a better hang of Adobe Premiere the redo process was relaxing. I still spent 8 hours editing, but I was constantly learning how to make things better. Earlier that day I met with Dr. Underriner to discuss my senior project and the tips he gave me for editing my music I also incorporated into videos.  He showed me how duplicating tracks, adding effects, and eq’ing could make something empty sound full. A few weeks ago, he also showed me how to view my audio in Premiere over in Audition, and how normalizing and eq’ing could make the audio for video better. So, with that in mind I attempted to get rid of excess noise and make my background music sound full and not tinny.  I’m still grasping the concept of this, but it made the video better.

One last thing I’ve learned to do better in Adobe Premiere are the rolling credits. This was not easy for me because I couldn’t get the keyframes right. Plus, in older versions of Premiere there were settings called rolling credits, but it was taken way in 2017’s update; so, the process was different. Well after watching several YouTube videos I got the hang of it. Thankfully enough 2018’s version has added it back and hopefully it will make creating rolling credits much easier.

Past teachers and professors have always emphasized to me the importance of group projects. I’ve heard about how such projects should cultivate my skills in teamwork and teach me how to see an issue from multiple viewpoints.  This has been true in some cases, but through my internship I’ve come to recognize a third factor I previously had not noticed.

Though the physical writing of the articles I post is independent work, I have often had to reach out to other to collect my content. Several instances have required me to conduct interviews as well, including my articles on the Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy, “Bedroom Farce”, and “Sticking It to the Man”. With others, like my article on CASAG, I have had to collect information through e-mail conversations.  This process of collaborating with faculty members, alumni, and fellow students has taught me that third factor: planning for the time of others.

Practicing personal time management is a completely separate matter, something most students learns early on through the challenge of rigorous courses. Appreciating and learning to plan around the time limitations of others has been a lesson I’ve learned through my internship. Just because I am available on Tuesdays and Thursdays does not mean I can expect the same from those with whom I need to collaborate. I’ve had to learn further ahead, recognizing differences in schedule. I believe this is a lesson I will carry forward into the future years of my professional career as I enter the workforce.