Whether you’re looking for a career in television, or purely suffering from the purposeless boredom that is complicit with an arts degree, getting involved with your student media society is a rather shrewd move.
Creative opportunities
The diversity of people you meet combined with its hustle and bustle means the university environment is often perceived as a microcosm of the real world. However, arguably one has more autonomy in the university sphere; one can more easily influence decisions and take part in creative projects.
Indeed student media presents the prospect of freely engaging in creative ventures that wouldn’t be so readily available in the “real world”. Once you’ve got to grips with the basic skills involved in using a camera, tripod and mic, venturing out into your student community and exploiting the number of societies that populate the campus is a wonderful way to get started.
Student life
The dynamism of student life means you’ll never be short of content. Whether it’s producing promos for student theatre, interviewing the women’s football team, or filming poetry slam events, University is a happening place. As well as liaising with fellow students, tutors are your gateway to a distinguished network of academics and beyond. With my seminar tutor’s consent, last term I began filming poetry recitals with visiting literary figures, including Louis de Bernieres.
Commitment
Perhaps the hardest part of involvement in student media is the time commitment. Filming student elections until 3am is maddening to outsiders, yet for those involved, student media isn’t purely a bolster for one’s CV. The mutual team sense of fulfilment, relief and prideful weariness in producing an 11hr live broadcast that attracted 500 online viewers is genuine.
It is the diverse membership of any society that makes it enjoyable; the chances are these people will not be your best friends, yet that’s the reality of the working world. Creative conflicts and professional disputes about your station’s material is arguably more mature matter ground for gossip than the drink orientated tittle-tattle of student life.
Get confidence
Although darting around campus equipped with camera and tripod, and harassing passers-by for student opinion may seem embarrassing, you’ll soon lose your crippling sense of self-consciousness and become the wealth of hearsay on student politics. When leafletters next attack you, you’ll feel a great affinity with the lone and sodden student distributing flyers in the rain.
Social media
With regards to student media’s importance on campus, student life is flourishing online. We are the generation most reliant on social networking, and exploiting these forums for marketing your own content is a great means of garnering an audience. Combined with experience using editing software and Photoshop, employers will appreciate these media skills.
Granted, “employability” is a term much despised by students, yet one’s creative dedication to an innovative society will impress. Very soon the stale smell of the media office, with its fusty body odour and biscuit crumbs, will be oddly familiar. The hub of gossip and flurry of activity epitomises what university can offer.
Why else should students get involved with campus media? Let us know in the comments below!
Photo: popturf.com / Flickr
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