Innovation Scholar's Reflection
During my time in the Innovation Scholars program, I’ve been able to better understand how to further create and collaborate as a whole. Whilst being in the program, I’ve been able to come together with people from diverse backgrounds with unique perspectives to work towards a common goal, or to bolster others’ ideas in their own projects and help them grow in their creative endeavors.
In the first Communications Innovation Studio class under Dr. Novak, I was shocked when I found out that our projects were going to be self-guided and completely from scratch. Once I found out that we can do whatever we wanted based on our major, I wanted to push myself to better understand how to collaborate with an all virtual, ragtag a cappella group in which I’d be doing all of the production. I’d push myself to set strict deadlines to ensure that I could better understand the time constraints of full-production audio engineers (excluding the recording process), as well as explore my arrangement and music direction capabilities. I had to learn how to collaborate virtually with people I don’t typically get a chance to work with, and how I could effectively organize and execute this project to ensure all deadlines were met, all from scratch - a custom arrangement, giving virtual singing direction, and completing all stages of an a cappella track from start to finish. In the end, I was able to deliver a fully finished track at least 3 weeks before my main deadline.
In the second Communications Innovation Studio under Dr. Edmondson, I decided to work on a more professional yet creative project in which I focused on creating a website to showcase my audio projects, as well as showcase my audio services as a freelance audio engineer. I decided to create a website as I’ve not only never understood how to create one in the first place, but because I also wanted to pursue more marketing-based creative projects since I had started to aspire towards a marketing and sales focused career. This class gave me the opportunity to explore how I can better promote my personal and professional brand, as well as showcase things I’ve been able to work on to give future clients a better perspective into my workflow to understand if I could be a good match for their line of work.