Reflective essay for module 201MC
After University I hope to graduate with a 2:1 or a 1st in Bachelor Media and Communication Studies in 2018. Studying this course has been an exciting journey and I can’t wait to see what is ahead for me in my finale year as this year I have been able to learn so much and really understand the media and communications industry. Professional Experience module has enabled me to have an insight of what I want to do in the future and how I can accomplish that. In module 201MC I had the chance to work in a group and create an artifact based on PR along side I had the chance to meet with six inspiring guest speakers such as Lauren Bromley – WPR Digital Marketing Agency, Lauren Bromley – WPR Digital Marketing Agency, Abbie Trayler-Smith- Document and Portrait Photographer, Dr. Greg De Cuir Jr.- Film production and festival curation and Johnny Fewings- Media consultancy. I personally picked up a lot from all of these guest speakers, as I was able to understand the PR work field better and also the chance to see some of the projects and campaigns some of these professionals had done. Listening to someone who was once a student like me and are now accomplishing their dream by doing what they do best in the media and communication industry uplifts me and encourages me to work even harder. I was very more excited when one of our guest speakers was a PR manager who had worked in the PR for more than 20 years with well-known media firms who was up for helping students in university who want to a professional career in PR. After listening to the guest speaker I can say I was more confident when applying for placement jobs and knew the questions to ask interviews. This year I was able to successfully write up a CV with the help of professional academic tutors where I was then able to apply for placement jobs this is very important as I had learned that what you put on your CV will motivate the employer on whether they should employ you or not. Luckily I received an invitation from Sitel a PR telecommunication office who work hand in hand with Virgin Media and deal with their marketing and telecommunication department. I was working at SITEL for 2 weeks, which was the most informative and fun experience of my life. Before my placement at Virgin Media I had never worked in an office based environment and working there gave me the experience and the chance to work ethically in a sophisticated environment, which will help me in the future. I must say with the help of this module I have been able to mentally and physically prepare myself for the future and I am looking forward to see what awaits me. This academic year all my modules were challenging but with help from tutors I was able to accomplish tasks to full understanding effectively. One of these tasks I had to do this year was in module 240MC where I was required to create a 3-fold advertising campaign of a product we created and then write a reflective essay about it. For this task it required a lot of group interactions and was the one of the best experience I had. Working in a team motivates me as I tend to learn a lot by listening to other people’s ideas and imaginations. My group and I decided to create an intimacy herbal tea targeted mainly for elderly couples. We had to come up with a campaign were a lot of ideas was brought to the table such as targeted audiences, price , packaging and aim. We successfully completed this task and came up with our brand as discussed. For this task I had to play the role of a Public Relations officer, which excited me as I enjoyed planning and bringing my ideas to the table. Another module I had covered this year was 241MC, which helped me understand the role of a PR, which excited me as PR is my selected job field after university. In this module as a group We Had to play the role of a public relations agency for Starbucks and are tasked with launching their Race Together campaign based on your campaign proposal. We had to organize a news conference to introduce our plan to the media. This was very challenging but with the help from our tutors, we had an insight of how press conferences should be conducted due to the weekly presentations we did every week as a group with the help of our tutor and how to tackle press conferences with in prompt breaking news. This helped me in so many ways and helped gained my confidence in my presentation skills, which was one of my weaknesses in University. Individually we had to produce a comparative analysis of the communication strategies used in two NGOs or two Celebrity PR campaigns. Reflective writing aids me in understanding task accomplished and reflect on all that I understand about what was covered in class and the tasks.
Professional Experience was the greatest experience and I have been able to finally conclude my weaknesses and strengths one of them are I have a very creative imagination and ideas but my weakness is not being able to express all of this academically and in writing. Although reflective writing gives me the chance to reflect in writing academically my weakness is writing my ideas academically. I am working very hard in improving my academic writing as I have learned that one of the important skills in PR is excellent academic writing. Furthermore, this year I have done a lot of tasks and interacted with a lot of professionals in the PR and media industry, which has been more than enough to help me, and I am glad I was part of this.
Media And Communicataion Studies 