Transferable Skills
There are ten main transferable skills that anyone should be working on throughout their lives:
- Strong Work Ethic
- Positive Attitude
- Effective Communication Skills
- Time Management Abilities
- Problem-Solving Skills
- Acting as a Team Player
- Self Confidence
- Ability to Accept and Learn from Criticism
- Flexibility / Adaptability
- Working Well Under Pressure
Link: The skills required for the workforce of tomorrow – Source: (Landsman, 2016)
Throughout my time at SAE I have been trying to improve on myself across the board. Personally, I think the skills that I came to SAE already strong in were my work ethic, communication, problem-solving, and my self-confidence. By no means am I a master in any of these areas, but I feel that just by meeting the benchmark that I set for myself that I will have helped perfect these skills without too much conscious effort.
Areas to Improve
I feel adequate in my flexibility and adaptability as well as my ability to work well under pressure. I worked on several projects of different sizes spanning multiple disciplines including game, animation and film audio. Overall, I completed 4 major projects and 3 minor projects, as well as creating countless throwaway beats over the course of the trimester. Considering I also worked two jobs throughout the entirety of the trimester, at times working 7 days a week, I was incredibly happy with the amount of work I got done. I feel that I reflected well on all the work I did, submitting 43 entries into the work log.
Link: Why humans aren’t the most efficient but can balance multiple tasks in life – Source: (The School of Life, 2015)
Time Management
In the middle of the trimester, I identified two areas that I needed to work on, my time management and my ability to accept and learn from criticism. Time management was the easier of the two to fix. My problem wasn’t finding the time to do my work, it was more appropriately allocating my time towards project work rather than just blogging about work I’ve already done. My blog output definitely decreased toward the second half of the trimester, however, I spent more time in the studio, and more time working on my projects which ended up giving me more time to improve the quality of all of my deliverables. In order to help me manage my time more effectively, I’ve started using google calendar to help me plan my events out. I highly recommend it as a tool as you can use it to organise meetings with other people as well as set events and reminders that will trigger on both your laptop and computer.
Link: Time Managment is an integral part of creating a work-life balance – Source: (Marsh, 2011)
Accepting and Learning From Criticism – Putting Myself Out There
The ability to accept and learn from criticism doesn’t come naturally to me. Whilst I am a very confident extrovert when it comes to showcasing my work, I don’t like to show anything that isn’t perfect. In the past two years I’ve been producing, I haven’t posted anything online, and barely shown anyone projects I’ve been working on, so when I identified that I would have to make an improvement in the amount of criticism I received in order to use it to improve my future works it was fairly daunting. I am happy to say though that I have faced my fears and started sharing my work with my friends online. I still use private links and only send the tracks I’ve been working on to people who either have a similar level or more experience than me in production, but the feedback I have received has already helped my productions. The main compositional feedback I kept hearing was that a lot of the tracks I write centre around 1 main chord and melody progression, so in order to keep the listener’s interest I need to diversify those elements at points throughout the track.
Pictured: Some of the feedback I got from peers outside of SAE throughout the trimester
I know that this isn’t enough though, so for the end of the trimester I bridged the public gap that’s been holding me back, and asked for feedback on my major project for the trimester, Towers Through Time, in /r/GameAudio. There were several self-promo restrictions I had to make sure not to violate so I only posted my FMOD session, but I look forward to learning from the community I want to join.
Pictured: My search for feedback from the Game Audio subreddit
End of Trimester Conclusion
I think that over the course of the trimester I smashed my goals. I created two projects using the middleware I wanted to learn, as well as doing post-production on a graduate film and finishing several other tracks. The skills I learnt throughout the trimester were not just hard skills, but I also improved my soft skills. My time management improved, as well as my ability to put myself out there in order to learn and accept from the criticisms that come with having my work in the public eye. All of the traits I picked up and strengthened over the course of the trimester will be things I carry on with me into the following trimesters and as long as I can continue putting my best foot forward I am sure I will leave SAE with a portfolio I can be proud of.
Link: How to help neuroplastic change take place in your brain, aka facilitating the learning of neuro-funk basses – Source: (Boyd, 2015)
Works Cited
Boyd, L. (2015, December 15). After watching this, your brain will not be the same. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from TEDxVancouver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNHBMFCzznE
Landsman, R. (2016, May 4). What Are the Skills For the Future Workforce? . Retrieved May 2, 2018, from TEDxPeddieSchool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcFiCdG-rwc
Marsh, N. (2011, February 7). How to make work-life balance work. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from TED Talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdpIKXLLYYM
The School of Life. (2015, June 15). Work-Life Balance. Retrieved May 2, 2018, from The School of Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPR3o6Hnf2g
Liam Lyttle 