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1. Unit B1: Personal Progression – Evaluation
Research into Future Options:
One of the very first tasks we were made to do for B1 was looking into working within the
media industry as well as looking at higher education options as a way of broadening our
knowledge about what pathways were open to us once we left college. To begin with, I begun
by looking into jobs available within the media industry and upon looking into this, I learned
about the pathways into certain jobs (becoming an editor for example was harder than I had
thought as you not only need a degree in a relevant field such as Journalism/Literature. As well
as this you would also need to be a straight-thinking person who works well in a management
role as you would be the person who would oversee distributing jobs to employees.) To find
myself in the role of ‘Editor’ I learned that I needed to build up my confidence in group projects
and as well as this, my research helped me realise the skills it actually takes to get into a
position such as this, therefore the skills I would have to develop given I plan on becoming an
editor. I realised that going to university would benefit me greatly after looking into jobs within
the industry as I would be put in a place where I am at an advantage given, I have a qualification
in a relevant subject. This research that we had done into jobs really helped me when it came
to reconsidering my future, as I had firmly believed that I could not use my qualifications from
my course to get a job I liked however, now I know this to not be true.
After completing this piece of work, it led on to my research into university and the process of
applying to University through UCAS. Before I had done any of this research, I knew that I was
going to go to university as I am a lover of education, and I knew that college could not be the
end of my educational journey. What I didn’t know though was which University I actually
wanted to attend as I hadn't thought about anything broader than attending Sunderland
University. I began by researching into courses on the UCAS website just so I could begin seeing
which courses sounded appealing to as once I knew what course I wanted to be on, it meant I
could limit down my university choices to the universities that offered said course. The courses
that I found myself interested in were courses that were based around journalism and/or media
and communications as I felt that these courses would give me the biggest advantages when it
came to finding a job within a field that I am interested in.

2. These were the courses I end on applying for as they were the ones that appealed to me the
most after looking at the actual university websites as they all seemed so different in their own
ways when it came to the layout of the courses however, as well as this, all of the Universities
had certain aspects to them that clearly appealed to me given that be the accommodation they
offer, the funding available for those in my situation or even if I just thought the module choice
would be something that would keep me engaged throughout my time at university. As of
12/02/2023 I have heard back from three of the universities so far (all acceptances) under
conditional offers, one of them being from my top choice which is the University of Sheffield
which was a lovely surprise as getting my degree in Journalism from Sheffield University would
be amazing for my career.
My Offer from Sheffield University:
My Offer from Teesside University:

3. My Offer from Portsmouth University:
I had also done some research into apprenticeships at companies such as the BBC, ITV and
Virgin Media however, this was not an option that appealed to me in the slightest seeing as I
am someone who thrives in an educational setting and because I plan on going to get my
degree (And then potentially continuing on to getting my masters) I figured I need not apply for
an apprenticeship because I would not be able to put my all into my application given that it is
not an opportunity I would take, even if I were offered it. Even though there were
apprenticeships going in journalism, I just knew myself and I knew that I wouldn’t forgive
myself if I abandoned the idea of going to university for an apprenticeship when I have dreamt
of going to university for years.
I had decided on Journalism as I have always been someone who finds enjoyment through
writing and I am known for my endless, almost obsessive, curiosity which turns out would
benefit me in a job role such as being a journalist. I realised being a journalist was the career I
had always been considering just without formally knowing the title. I had also decided to apply
for Film and Media Studies at the University of Leicester though as it is a safe choice for me
given that I have a sudden change of heart before I accept any of my university choices. I didn’t
want to close myself off to just one option as this seemed like it was restricting myself
unnecessarily. I had also considered applying to other universities such as Edinburgh Napier
University however I ultimately decided against this as the entry requirements were

4. unreasonable for those taking a course such as mine. (They would have expected me to get an
A-Level in English)
Creating My Brand Identity:
Moving onto the second section of B1, I feel that this is honestly one of the most important
parts of the project as this is the one that is going to aid me the most as I take my steps into the
future. Creating my brand is something so important as it was the creative process behind
beginning to make a name for myself through designing a logo, business card, showreel and
digital profile. Of course, to begin with, I started by writing a personal statement for myself as
this was a priority in eyes (given that I needed one for when I was applying to university.) I put a
lot of effort into writing my personal statement as it was essentially me representing myself on
a page and it needed to be good enough to persuade universities to offer me a place on the
courses, I am interested in. I made sure to gather feedback for my personal statement from my
lecturers to ensure it was of the best quality, adjusting it until we all felt there were no more
changed that needed to be made to it. Overall, I would say that I am very pleased with my
personal statement, and it has achieved what I had hoped from it, which was it getting me into
my dream university, I could hardly ask for more. Moving on to my CV, I researched into what
makes a good and bad CV to ensure that I was knowledgeable about the subject before it came
to creating my own because I knew how important a CV is as it is the thing that could stand
between getting you a job and causing you to lose the opportunity of getting a job. I made sure
to get my CV checked over by my lecturers the same way I had gotten my personal statement
checked to ensure that I didn’t have any unimportant details littered in my CV that would cause
an employer to be put off me, however I also needed them to check that all the necessary
information was on my CV. These two pieces of work helped me greatly in the real world as
well as the CV that I created to appeal to general retail jobs as I applied for some jobs to
supermarkets in my city and I received two different interviews, one at Iceland and another at
ASDA. I was successful in getting the job in Iceland and this was all thanks to the fact that my CV
appealed to the store manager seeing as it had all my information on it including my previous
experience and other key features about me such as my listed skills and the short personal
statement included on my CV. These were important for me to do as they have helped me
understand more about how to appeal to an employer through your words, such as key words
to use to catch their attention, learning not to overcomplicate things as this is off-putting to an
employer, etc.
My logo and Business Card designs are also included in this portion of B1, and I would say they
are the thing that required the most work during the creative process as they required a lot of
time and patience which is something I struggled with being a bit of a perfectionist. These
products taught me how to be more patient and as well as this they helped me as it made it

5. easier for me to take constructive criticism on board, seeing how feedback could actually aid
me and improve my ideas. Creating these products added to my brand identity, giving me a
beginning when it came to giving myself an image. I now have a business card and a logo that I
could use in the future given I want to and because of the simplicity of my design, it means that
it could be used in so many different careers (such as in editing, photography, graphic design,
etc.) Seeing as I went with such a simple colour scheme for my brand (a grayscale colour
scheme) it means that it can easily blend in with different pieces of work and it means that I
would not be stuck with having my logo clash with pieces of media such as if my logo was blue
on a yellow background.
To ensure I knew what I was doing when it came to creating a business card and a logo, I did
research into logos and business card from other brands as this helped me get a feel for what
makes a good logo, what appeals to me in a company’s branding as well as what works well
already in the marketplace. For example, I looked into the psychology behind the colours in the
McDonalds logo and how they are bound to make a consumer feel (hungry and makes the
company seem inviting.) as colour theory is an important factor to keep in mind when creating
your own product. You need to know what you plan on having those who look at your branding
feel and the aspects of your design that need to align with these plans. I feel that this adds to
my Informing Ideas section as well as my professional practice as this shows that I am working
towards ensuring that I am working with the same ideologies in my mind as professional
companies. I showed professionalism as I did extensive research and then applied this research
to my own design upon creating it. Creating these pieces of work certainly took a lot of trial and
error as it was not an easy process. For example, I made four drafts of my logo and then even
after finalising the design, I had another few drafts all with different colour schemes and font
choices as I wanted to ensure it was exactly what I wanted it to be. It was a lengthy process,
and it was creatively demanding however I feel like because I was committed to the process, I
came out with pieces of work I am more than happy with, making it all worth it.

6. Before I looked into making my own showreel, I made sure to look into two different showreels
first to get an idea of what a showreel is and what content is generally included in a showreel. I
looked a two showreels from different students at different levels in their education and from
this, it helped me gather my own thoughts about the content I was planning on including in my
own piece of work. I feel like the most demanding part of this part of the project was the
showreel though. This was certainly the most creatively challenging part of this for me as it
relied on my video editing skills which I found myself not feeling extremely confident in. This
was a product that, just like the logo and business design, had various drafts to it to ensure that
it was of the highest quality. I found myself not being able to stop until I was very happy with
my final product, and I think this was because this was the piece of work that showed off the
footage that I had taken across my entire time on the course so far. This is the project that I
took the most feedback on board for seeing as it was given to me by my peers who knew what
they were doing to the same level as me however, they were able to look at my word
objectively, giving me feedback that in all honestly made my work a hell of a lot better. Using
Premier Pro was difficult to me as I was not used to the interface however, after my first and
second draft, I found myself growing more confident with the software and by the time it came
to creating my final version of my showreel, I realised I was actually enjoying video editing more
than I had been when I began working on my showreel. This was a nice surprise for me as video
editing had never been my strongest skill and to see myself improving boosted my confidence
by a lot. I am very pleased with the outcome of my showreel, and I feel it displays the best of
my work in a professional manor, being well edited as well as accompanied by music that aligns
well with the content within the showreel. I made it to the highest standard I could manage to
make it to. Now that I have this product made as well, it means that if anything I am applying
for requires a showreel, I have one there and ready to use.
The final part of creating a brand identity for myself was to make a Create Britian profile for
myself so I have something to act as a digital profile for myself. To start this process off, I

7. decided to do some research into existing digital profiles to get an idea of what is generally
included on a profile as well as what makes a digital profile good as well as bad. First of all, I
made sure to make an account on Create Britain on my personal email as I figured it was a bad
idea to use my school email, as then I would lose my work. From there I begun adding links to
different profiles to my page (such as my email, YouTube account, company Instagram, LinkedIn
account, the link to my blogger and my WordPress account URL.) I figured I needed to include
all of the relevant profiles seeing as this is supposed to be a good way to find out about me and
my work. I added a short personal statement to this account just so those looking at my profile
can get a brief introduction to me as a person. I also added some of my work to the featured
work section on my profile to show off my abilities briefly. From there, the website gives you a
moment to add ‘creative disciplines’ which is essentially where you go through a list of different
sectors in different industries and choose the skills you feel you have. Once I had added all of
my relevant skills, I then chose what I thought my skill level was for each of the skills and added
a brief description to those that I felt needed an explanation.
Example of this:
Undertaking Networking Opportunities:
Leo Pearlman - 08/10/21:

8. In our first and second year, we were given the chance to go to talks given by Leo Pearlman, a
founder of the company Fulwell73. From this I learned that if I want to find myself a job within
the media industry, I need to start networking whenever I can. This is because having contacts
that you work with from the beginning of your career makes working easier and more
enjoyable according to Mr Pearlman. He walked us through the way he found his way into the
industry, and he was a good example that you don’t need a degree in media to find a job in
media seeing as he was originally planning on being a lawyer, going to law school but deciding
not to put this into practice.
David Puttnam: 10/10/22 :

9. The person who the event featured was Lord David Puttnam. Puttnam is a film producer who
was born in London, England. As well as being a producer, Puttnam is also a former member of
the House of Lords where he sat on the side of Labour. I would say that from the talk I learned
more about the history of the industry as well as what Puttnam thinks is going to be the future
of the industry. I also learned about parts of the industry that he thinks is booming in a way and
that is dubbing which is where people do voiceovers in many languages over shows such as
Stranger Things and Squid Game. I wouldn’t say that the talk helped me think about specific
career paths that could be good for me as I could never see myself going into dubbing. Puttnam
also discusses jobs available in pre-production, streaming as well as jobs available in production
itself. He showed us a diagram of different jobs that were available in different industries
however he focused specifically on which ones a producer can do. Although I was not
interested in the career path that Puttnam was educating us on, the talk itself was still
interesting as it showed me that I have various options for if I change my mind on what I would
like to do in the future.
David Longworth – 17/10/22:

10. We were given the chance to talk to a representative from the BBC regarding the
apprenticeships they offer (which was an opportunity that someone in the year above us was
lucky enough to get accepted into.) David Longworth works as the Apprenticeships and Training
Schemes Manager at BBC North, and he has for almost 12 years now. His job involved recruiting
and training new starters at the BBC and one of the students who was in the year above me has
moved on to doing an apprenticeship at the BBC now. Similarly, to Pearlman, David did not
always plan on going into media, going to University for History instead however he is a clear
example of the fact that you do not always have to go into the industry your degree is based
on. This talk from David helped me widen my knowledge of the different career paths that are
open to me now that I am due to leave college within the next year. It has certainly made me
begin thinking if I would want to go down an apprenticeship route once I have left
college/university as there are so many potential careers open for me, given I want to go down
them.
Leo Axel - 06/02/23:

11. I would say I came out of this workshop knowing a little more about the industry and potential
careers within it such as freelancing, however the main thing that I learned from this is that
confidence will be your most important trait when trying to create a name for yourself. Axel set
us a task where we were given an hour to record some footage around the college and create a
promotional video (no longer than 60 seconds) that would be directed towards international
students. Once we were done with this, we then moved onto showing these videos to everyone
and Axel gave us some feedback on what we had created which was a good experience as it
was actual industry feedback.
CDF Placement - 10/22 - 07/23:

12. I was lucky to be put on this placement as I aim to find a job within the Media industry and
working here has given me real life experience working from a brief and working for people
who are specific and precise about what they are looking for from me. They have given me the
chance to create different pieces of media for their social media pages, write news articles to
go on their blog, create work booklets for courses they planned on hosting as well as many
other things that have given me invaluable skills to take into the workplace. I have learnt more
from the owners as well as they have given me good advice about my future as well as pieces of
advice about personal situations that meant a lot to me. Being here has helped me improve my
confidence, my digital design skills, my writing skills as well as general conversational skills as I
work alongside more people than I had thought I would when I began my placement. I have
been able to network in this position and they have introduced me to relevant people who
could potentially help me later when I am working in industry.
Conclusion:
I know from the research I have done that my next steps after college is to go to university,
because even though I know an apprenticeship would be a fantastic opportunity, I strive to
learn, and I know that staying in education would benefit me greatly in comparison to this.
From the Universities I have applied to; my firm choice is the University of Sheffield where I
plan on taking Journalism Studies and then my insurance choice will be the University of
Portsmouth where I would be doing Journalism with Media Studies.
My future career aspirations are that I want to go to university for my BA and then, if I think I
can handle it, going on to getting my MA as I feel like getting this qualification would not only
make me stand out to employers in comparison to other potential applicants however it is also
just something I feel I would enjoy seeing as it would open me up to even more career
prospects. I plan on becoming a journalism although I am not yet sure what kind of journalist
however, this is something I figure I will find out at university as I am taught the different
requirements of different journalists.