P2 Self Assessment

Personal Characteristics

As as person i have a lot of personal skills that help me talk to people and work very well in a team, this means that i won’t cause any conflict in a workplace and as such i am easy to work with and work around. However i can be very poor at managing my time and as such can find it hard to keep track of things. i can work on this by creating detailed plans of work to do, i find when i can systematically work through things i find it a lot easier to concentrate and get it done rather than working in a random and unorganised way.

Skills -

I have a large amount of skills in media that include video and photo editing in adobe programs such as premiere, after effects and photoshop, I have a set of basic software engineering skills in python with databases and other basic skills that i wish to grow upon in university and good social skills that i can use to work well in a team or to converse with clients.

Experience and interests -

I have a lot of experience in voice acting, a small amount of experience in programming and a lot of experience in film making and editing.

My interests match with my experiences quite a bit because i always do a lot of the things i love, for example i love creating short films. programming is one career that I have a large passion in and because of that i find it easy to work on even in my spare time. Voice acting has always been a passion of mine and i have been doing off the cuff work for small content creators on the internet for a while now, i do not see it as a job, more of a hobby that i love to enjoy and train my voice to do interesting things.

Relevant achievements -

I have the NCS award, these are given to people that complete 3 weeks of the national citizen service and they help develop your people skills and your independent skills, they also teach you a little about the real world and help develop you into someone that you want to be, this helped me a lot personally because i struggled with even worse anxiety that i do now about a year ago and the NCS award helped me by introducing me to a lot of new people and building my confidence greatly.

I have created my own short documentary that really helped build my confidence as a possible film maker, the documentary was met with a great reception by peers and friends and it helped me know what i could do for when i create my next short film and develop me as a director / editor / writer and cinematographer as i made the film pretty much by myself.

Cons -

I have a lot to learn in the field of software currently, that will be resolved while i am studying at university and getting ready to leave. my father is also a software engineer and has been for the last 25 years and he is very good at what he does. i have him available for any questions i have with software and so im sure i will learn things very quickly and pick them up as i work on them. another thing i need to work on is time management, i often find myself getting distracted from things while i work on them if i find it boring or repetitive so i need to learn to have a much greater work ethic. One other thing i need to work on is a sense of drive and self motivation, i often find it hard to push myself to work hard on something and thus i end up rushing things to a poor standard. The last thing that i need to work on is my own anxiety, it often prevents me from doing the things i consciously want to do and can make me lock up and make me hard to work with and impossible to speak to.

Letter to an employer

51 Anson Road

Cambourne

CB23 6DJ

Adam Duffield
Cell: 07807007597

Dear Philip Janson,

I am writing this letter because I am looking for an apprenticeship at world pay to give me more work experience before I move on to more work in the software industry.

I am able to work any hours available on weekends and bank holidays and I am prepared to fill any role you have available. I would like to be able to work with one of your software teams so that I can develop myself more as a software developer.

Yours faithfully,

Adam.

P6 Adam Duffield Showreel

 Above you will see my show reel, it shows my skills in animation, graphic design special effects and documentary editing. these are a large range of skills that i can show off to an employer. this video is designed to be shown to an employer as a calling card showing off my skills that they will hopefully employ me from.

Recourse Audit

Locations -

For software engineering you do not need to leave the house often if you have a computer as everything is software based its easy to simply email over to my employeer.
Recently i have learned how to drive also, so getting to places within cambridge will be easy to me, the building that i aspire to work at (world pay) is at the science park in cambridge and will only require a short drive to get to.

Skills -
I have a large amount of skills in media that include video and photo editing in adobe programs such as premiere, after effects and photoshop. i also have a set of software engineering skills in python with databases and other basic skills that i wish to grow upon in university.

Cons -
I have a lot to learn in the field of software currently, that will be resolved while i am studying at university and getting ready to leave. my father is also a software engineer and has been for the last 25 years and he is very good at what he does. i have him available for any questions i have with software and so im sure i will learn things very quickly and pick them up as i work on them. another thing i need to work on is time management, i often find myself getting distracted from things while i work on them if i find it boring or repetitive so i need to learn to have a much greater work ethic.

     Recourses -
A high spec computer: cost - around £500, can be between £300 and £2000 depending on what you want.
My home pc is very powerful with 12GB of ram and a high speed processor and graphics card, this makes it quick and easy for me to test my code and anything i create that is media related for example games or code with visual elements.

     A raspberry pie software kit - These are around £30 for the Mk2 and £15 for the Mk1
A raspberry pie is a starting hardware module that has different features including motors, speakers and other elements that is designed to be manipulated with software that i can use freely to practice my coding.

     Multiple computers on a network - Costs - same as the first, however it doesn't have to be as powerful as you will be coding on the first one and this can be just used as a database to access.

Having multiple computers in a network is handy for any software practice as it means i can practice using a database to span multiple computers that i would need to be able to do if i wanted to go into a full time career in programming as most software used in the real world is based on databases and knowing how to access them remotely is very important.


Contacts -

My father, a highly skilled long time software engineer.

Jon lister, a highly skilled software engineer, friends with my father and a long time family friend

Jon lindon, a freelance media recruiter, if i wanted to get into media related software development then he is who i could speak to. He is a family friend and has been for years.

Things that i still need

I lack some of the contacts i would need if i wanted to realistically go into the media industry. I can work on getting more contacts by talking to jon lindon, because he works in media recruiting i have a great source if i wanted to get more contacts.


It would be a lot better if when i was applying to job to have some work in a portfolio,  this will help build my software experience and help me learn new languages. evidence that i can show to an employer, this will help make a transition a lot smoother because most employers in software dont want someone that they have to train, they want someone who already has experience doing the job, be that in another job

Careers flow diagram with writeup -updated-

Plan A computer programming 

Here we see that my career plan can go through several routes, the quickest in the short term being to go through university and get a job at a company called world pay. this would be the easiest for me as my father works there he could get me into the company and they have a really good graduate scheme that accepts people straight out of university for apprenticeships and for hire. i believe that this fits well into my recourse plan because I can utilise my contacts fully to achieve my goal and i already have the physical resources to do what i need. These plans are not completely separate from each other however, as i can be working on my short film skills while also working on programming to maximize the

Plan B Script Writing

The Second way in the medium term would be going more into script writing with the BBC, a lot of this can be happening while at university as i can spend my spare time doing script writing or making short films to go into the media industry more specifically rather than software. This plan is one that i can do while also doing my plan A. for example while i am at university i have the options to continue making scripts or short films at the same time as my studies because i have an interest in it, from this added experience

Plan C Short film making

The Longest term plan that i have is making short films and showing them at film festivals, this could be a very long term plan though as its not guaranteed that my films would be successful and that's why the media industry is hard to get into. again, i can start this while im still at university making this plan easy to do at the time time as plan A to give me experience in the media industry that can also help me with my contingency plan.

Links to my audit

Considering the Resources on my audit i believe that my path into software engineering would be a lot simpler to organise for me personally as i have the contacts required and the skills to actually succeed in the industry for example i have the contacts and the hardware required for any low or high level work in the industry and can grow from there, as apposed to a career in media that can be inconsistent with the level of contacts and resources i possess.

Contingency plan

If all else fails i can spend my time to study software from home and gain the knowledge and a portfolio to apply to jobs, or i can start creating my own games or other entertainment apps on mobile devices as they are simple to make and can keep someone ticking over financially if they are mildly successful, this can however be hard as there are millions of apps on the store and it can be hard to get noticed, however the experience that i will gain from university and doing programming in my spare time will make the things i can create hopefully stand out from the crowd and if i can build a reputation for myself or have a breakout hit then i can use it as a reliable source of income for me.

My CV

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Ws7nYVfExAhtuL3DZgSuGH7A45Q2EAFVV9vNbLkiRE/edit?usp=sharing

Adam John Duffield

51 Anson Road,

Upper Cambourne,

Cambridge,

CB23 6DJ.

Tel: 07807007597

I am a hard working, energetic, team player, who enjoys interacting with both team members and customers.I have the ability to be creative and enjoy the challenge of thinking up solutions to problems in creative and efficient ways.

During my work experience at BHS I was responsible for a number of tasks including: customer adviser, stock controller, sales assistance, which was identified as one of my strengths.

Employment History:

Work Experience - BHS, Grafton Centre, Cambridge, March 2012- April 2012.

Responsibilities

• Sales Assistant
• Customer advisor
• Stock control

Education:

Long Road Sixth Form College

• Cambridge advanced technicals in media diploma
• AS level film studies Grade  B

Comberton Village College

• GCSE A* - C: English, Maths, Geography, Spanish, Science
• Advanced BTEC level two: Business Studies

Additional Qualifications

• NCS, National Citizen Service Award

Letter template

51 Anson Road

Cambourne

CB23 6DJ

Adam Duffield
Cell: 07807007597

To Whom it may concern,

I am writing this letter because I am looking for an apprenticeship to give me more work experience before I move on to work in the software industry.

I am able to work any hours available on weekends and bank holidays and I am prepared to fill any role you have available.

I think if we can keep in contact then we can work together in the future.

Yours faithfully,

Adam.

Understanding Jobs in the media sector -updated-

About me

https://about.me/adam_duffield
this is a link to the about me page i have created for myself.