May 2020: the First Month out of College Part 1
I was one of the lucky few who graduated in the middle of a pandemic, and better yet, I was graduating with a degree in a field that I wasn't interested in pursuing professionally anymore. So I basically had to start my career from square one during a time when companies weren't even hiring.
Pre-pandemic, I had planned to work over the summer and save money so I could move to a city like Chicago or LA. I figured I would work on my portfolio and interview for jobs in my spare time so that I could move to a city with a sense of security. Well, once it became clear that the world was moving in a far different direction than my plans, I buckled down and focused on what I could control: my art. I do feel very lucky that all my passions can be done digitally so I didn't feel much interruption there, and I was eligible for unemployment so my needs were met.
Project-wise, the pandemic actually brought me my first freelance project. I was an Acting major, and at the end of the year all of the senior actors were supposed to travel to LA, NY, and Chicago to perform for agents. Like so many other things, this national tour was cancelled, but because I have a background in video editing, I was asked to edit a virtual showcase of self-taped monologues that would be sent to agents. This project turned out to be a beast because I was editing everything off of my tiny Surface Pro 3, applying coloring effects that slowed everything down, and my software would crash multiple times during export since the full showcase file was huge. I remember heartbreakingly that one export needed about 8 hours to complete so I went to bed just to wake up and find that the export had failed while I was sleeping. Oh, and I should mention that I was still studying for my finals while juggling all of this.
The final video that I produced was…mediocre. What else could you expect from subpar footage paired with subpar equipment paired with a subpar editor (me), but that is not to say that I shouldn't have made the video just because it was destined to be kind of crappy! People still appreciated all my effort because without me they wouldn't have had anything which would have been objectively worse. The video was a testament to the times we were living in; it was the best we could do with what we had. So though I will always cringe at its quality, I'm am glad we have it as a memory of that crazy period of time.
I almost didn't get paid for this project either, but it was actually my friends who urged me to inquire about payment because they had watched me labor over the stupid video for hours, cursing the universe every time something glitched and pulling my hair out over poor lighting that needed to be fixed. So I took the first step in building a skill that every freelancer must develop: valuing oneself.
Because no matter how you look at it, I had done the department a service, and people should be paid for their services. I was sooooo nervous to send my request to the theatre department head, which is silly because the worst response I would get back is "no". Luckily, my department head agreed with me and immediately made the arrangements to get me paid.
So not only do you have to value yourself, but you have to remember that your negative expectations are just suggestions, not facts. Even if you feel the work you do is crappy, your effort deserve to be rewarded, and it never hurts to ask for what you think you deserve. They had every right to say no to me, and if they had, I still would have valued the experience. So it's important to be flexible with the outcome, but never talk yourself out of trying.
Now with all my finals passed and the virtual showcase completed, I downloaded my virtual diploma and saved it in my Documents folder. Goodbye college, it was time to get to work.
May 2020 (Lessons Learned)
Value yourself and get compensated for your efforts.
Even if you think the work you make is crappy, it can still serve a valuable purpose