Critical Reflections on personal and professional development

10/2/23 

Today I decided to email two work placement opportunities using what I had tried to learn on the Wednesday. Both placements are based in North Wales with one of them being a local independent mixed arts venue that has a cinema and the other being a theatre that does a mixture of live performance on the stage and screenings of live theatrical pieces whilst also using the big screen in the day as a conventional cinema. The reason for looking back at my home of North Wales is that I had been unsuccessful in my attempts of procuring a work placement in Leeds and thought I needed to change something rather than fall down the same trap again. Another reason for contacting the theatre is my Aunty has ties with the venue and previously stewarded there in the past. She managed to provide me with a contact email that was better than the generic venue one that is on the website. This proves that you could have helpful contacts anywhere who have links to the industry.

2/3/23

Since the Pecha Kucha I have struggled to get back on schedule and motivate myself to work on other modules with four on the go at the moment. It hasn’t helped that I have also developed a cold in this time, and I feel pretty awful. I really need to create a better timetable to divide the work for the different modules to help me streamline better use of my time. Another benefit for creating a better schedule is to plan for the inevitable such as illness as I have experienced this week. Obviously, you can't expect the unexpected but if you try and plan some sort of emergency plan to limit a disturbance that could happen. Doing this would also put my mind at peace that if something goes wrong there is a plan in place that may help my morale going forward with the work. 

10/3/23

Trying to develop my Timetable to help structure how I work and when I work has been difficult as I have tried create one without the concrete information of when my placement is going to take place or how that is going to relate with my other modules. Other than that, the mindset has improved and I'm trying to get more involved in looking for opportunities back in North Wales to help develop my career on a personal business.

19/3/23

I have finally heard back from theatre Colwyn, Phill who runs the cinema said that there may be an opportunity for myself to get involved and shadow him. This is the news I have been waiting to hear for a long time as it had been dominating my mindset and distracting me from working on my other modules to the best of my ability as everything that I am going to learn from this I should be able to take forward and apply in my other modules going forward.

2/4/23

Today has been a tough day, probably the most disheartening of my time on the module so far as Phill at theatre Colwyn has messaged and said that the timings aren't going to work out for me going along and completing a placement as he couldn't accommodate me at this particular time due to constraints on his business and especially his time. It is understandable but also really disappointing as it feels like at this point I'd put all my eggs into this one basket for my placement and I have already moved back home from Leeds for the Easter break so with the short amount of time it will be impossible to look in Leeds. Phill has given me the contact info for another organization in North Wales that I've never heard of before called TAPE.

6/4/23

TAPE have been in contact and I've managed to get a placement/shadow/volunteering role at TAPE which is going to further my studies, not only in Experiential learning but ECICE and all of my other modules. This feels like a defining day in my development on the course so far.

18/4/23

Having helped out and witnessed a few sessions at TAPE, todays felt the most important for my development in the professional sector as I managed to actually engage in curating that will essentially be seen by the public at a future date. To this point my curating practices has been hypothetical or for my family but to actually produce something that is going to be seen by people. Probably one of the best days I've had on the course so far.

28/4/23

I had a meeting with Steve today regarding whether I wanted to continue with TAPE post my work placement and I felt like it went well as the comments from Steve were positive. Through doing a placement I may have secured somewhere permanent for myself in a role that I deemed was important for my career.