Overall I had an amazing time this week. Initially, I struggled with the decision whether to apply to NextGen because I’ve been having a hard time with motivation these last few months. I had a stressful and great time pitching because at that point, I had more confidence and I felt like I wanted to prove to myself that I could get accepted into something in my field this year. Then I got even more excited when I found out Devin was going to be my mentor because I love The Bay and he seemed cool (he is). It was great to have someone believe in me right away, before I had even started working on my story.
I’ve always had anxiety, especially when it comes to succeeding in the things I’m most passionate about. When I tell you that I had no anxiety this week — save for during my first edit and while filming my stand up — that is monumental for me. I have never had a mentorship experience before. When I was on student publications, I was often providing mentor-like support to 10 other students with little coming my way. I’m so grateful for the support I had this week from everyone I got to work with. My favorite part of this week was crafting my audio story. Looking back, I still can’t believe that when Wednesday started I hadn’t even laid out all my audio, then by the end of that day my story was mixed and done. I’m glad that the creative process was clear throughout the whole program, and any questions I had were always answered. I also really loved working on the audio story details with Devin because I feel like we were always on the same page about my story and I was able to really think creatively in that working environment.
This has definitely reignited my love for audio storytelling, and inspired me to (literally) get off my ass and keep doing work like this.
I’m so glad I got the opportunity to see what a solid, encouraging work environment is like, and now I feel confident in my ability to advocate for that in my future.
