I have never been an abundantly creative person. I attack things with an analytical approach, not creatively. So, naturally, I was not inclined to take fine arts courses. I wasn’t good at art, I didn’t want to play an instrument, and I definitely didn’t want to sing. My final choice was film. I skipped straight to Film 2 for my junior year, simply because I wanted to film projects, not watch movies. This choice ended up changing my final two years of high school.

I had no clue what I was doing at the beginning of the year, so it was kind of a grind to figure out what to do. It took me forever to figure out what I was doing. Once I gained a basic understanding of the film concepts, I honed the skills of filming and editing to where I could do a basic shoot and edit it down. But, I found something that I truly loved in live-streaming. I started as a grunt: running cable, helping with cameras, helping with equipment, that sort of stuff. I worked my way up to technical directing on occasion, towards the end of my junior year. It was something that I was good at. It was something that I understood because I had been watching from the other side of the screen for my whole life.

Senior year, I had to step it up. I immediately began producing and directing games, which I truly enjoyed. It gave me a sense of responsibility and leadership that I hadn’t felt since I played sports several years ago. It has been something that I look forward to and get excited about every time that when get close to my next one. It gave me a creative outlet that I had never had before. I learned that I am creative, just not in the way that most people would think.

Media arts has reinforced old skills that I had forgotten about, and it introduced new ones. Teamwork and leadership are skills that I haven’t used since the last time I played baseball, but they are skills that are required for live-streaming. Without teamwork, you cannot accomplish anything. It is a cohesive unit: one thing doesn’t look right without the other parts. Creativity is one of the new skills that I had to learn. If you look at a sports event as black and white (simple, one thing to another), the broadcast would look boring. If you look at it with a creative mind, the graphics, camera angles, and replays all come together in one cohesive project.

It took hard work to get to the position I am at now, but it has been an incredible ride. I have loved every minute of it, the grind of learning a new skill. It has become a big part of my life for the past year. I pick up every directing job that I can, and pick up a few producing jobs reluctantly. It might be hard to accomplish, but it is very rewarding when it’s finished.

If you are someone who is considering Media Arts, I would encourage you to go ahead and take it. Whether you are a rising freshman or rising senior, media arts would be beneficial to anyone.