Placement… where do I begin. I began the year with such high hopes of finding a placement so easily and quickly, taking like a duck to water. This was not, and I repeat NOT, the case. Finding a placement made me feel more like Indiana Jones looking for the Lost Ark. Then one day after hockey training I happened to bump into a friend of mine who happened to work for Ulster Hockey and low and behold, they were looking for a placement student to help with Video and Content production. Perfect! After a couple of emails, I was in!
They took me on and ive been with them for the last, nearly, 2 months.
This Blog will explore my struggles getting a placement, the events, specifically my first event of the Young Leaders Course and things ive covered and produced content for so far and what ive learnt along the way.
For my reflection, I will be using Borton’s reflective frame work, Its described in Jasper 2013, “Borton’s framework presents a relatively simple model that is very suitable for novice practitioners but can be used at different levels as students become more adept at reflecting on their practice, and more critically analytical. It is based on the need of practitioners to operate in the real world of practice – the need to identify, make sense of and respond to real-life situations. It asks the person to reflect using three basic starting points to the questions:
• What? type questions, such as: What happened? What was I doing?
What were others doing? …
• So what? type questions, such as: So what more do I need to know in order to understand the situation? So what could I have done that was different? …
• Now what? type questions, such as: Now what do I need to do to make things better? Now what will I do? Now what might be the consequences of this action?” (Jasper, 2013)
Getting my Placement
What? Describe an event or action.
From the middle of July, I had began. I was sending out emails left, right and centre, trying to exhaust any last contact or lead I had. I was getting nowhere. Then I happened to come across this opportunity, with Ulster Hockey, in late August/Early September, and I jumped at it for many reasons. Ulster Hockey have lots of connections within the sporting world as they have many contacts and useful people involved with them and as an avid sports fan, I love the idea of sports content creation for a job, so it really gave me a new fire behind my excitement for placement aswell as the opportunity to help bring more coverage for one of my favourite sports. This allowed me to throw myself straight into the placement and all it had to offer.
So what? Explain why the action or event was Significant
My trials and tribulations of getting a placement, made me aware of actually how many opportunities and places for the Creative arts and Media there are in Belfast and around this area. This allowed me to actually create a few more contacts and relationships within the industry even though they weren’t able to offer me placements. It also allowed me to really explore and see what my options where within the local industry, as well as creating opportunities for myself and see what else is out there within this industry. These companies I contacted where able to offer advice for moving forward and other things even though they couldn’t provide placement and this helped build my confidence. As a fairly confident person this task of chatting to and introducing myself to these companies helped to create these opportunities for myself.
Now what? Explain how you will use that information for future practice.
Due to the contacts and information I have gathered this will be so useful for the future and getting jobs. However the advice I received is able to help me now as it provided me with the knowledge and knowhow in how to improve my content and my product, as well as improving myself and what I have to offer to companies and other productions. Alongside this I am now able to use these contacts to up keep relationships with them and one day hopefully avail of them. Ultimately, as I said before, im a massive sports fan and love field hockey so for me Ulster Hockey was the ideal placement opportunity for me as it allowed me to combine my love of the sport, my love of sports and my love for content and media production into the ideal placement for me and my interests and also to help me get set and onto the right path to help me get down that route in the future.
Young Leader Course
What? Describe an event or action.
I arrived to Coleraine Hockey Club on 17th October, to attend and film a promo video for their Young Leaders Course. This wasn’t my first time doing something like this but the nerves still kicked into overdrive all the same. I threw myself straight in all the same and haven’t looked back since. At the event there where around 18/20 14-17 year olds which were all terrified of the camera. After chatting to a few of them and getting set up I was able to reassure them that it would be fun and that they should just chill out and forget about the camera. After that I was able to film clips through out the day in the course and create a worthwhile video for promotion. At the start it was scary turning up and filming this course as it was such an busy day.
So what? Explain why the action or event was Significant
This course was the starting point for me with the company and at the start it was a very nervy experience but as the day went on I grew into my role and it allowed me to get to know the guy who runs the media and content, and make a good impression by delving into my work and doing it well. After the day, I was then able to show my proficiency using editing software and creating content in a quick turn around by having the video done in a day and back to him.
Now what? Explain how you will use that information for future practice.
These experiences have allowed me to prove myself and learn alongside. I’ve been able to see that providing good quality content and quickly will earn you respect as well as a good reference for the future when going to other places and being able to go in and show them how fast you can turn around these content pieces and create on a timeframe. Being able to show how hard you can work and a good attitude are also other things that I’ve learnt as they are able to show how committed and prepared you are and ready you are to work hard for them which again is able to provide a good image for yourself.
Conclusion
For me, I’ve always been one to try to combine my passions and interests. Sports, especially field hockey, and Media, Videography, Photography and Content creation have always been passions of mine and being able to combine them into a placement has been a real dream come true. Being able to work at promoting a sport I love through being able to create and produce high quality content couldn’t be better. Being able to attend these courses and events have been able to not only grow my own love for the sport but also allowing us to amas up to and over 15,000 views on nearly every video since I’ve started.
Ultimately, My experiences of placement have been not only insightful and helpful but also extremely enjoyable and easily on of the most fulfilling experiences. Despite the long road it took to land my placement, I couldn’t have asked for a better placement to come along and ill be so grateful and happy that I get to work at such a good company, Ulster Hockey.
Bibliography
Jasper, M. (2013). Beginning reflective practice. Second edition, p. 102.VLE. [Online] Available at: https://www.vlebooks.com/Vleweb/Product/Index/496302?page=0 (Accessed: 14th November 2023).