Job shadow experience helps me find my career path
March 5, 2020
NORFOLK – As I began my education here at Northeast Community College, I was completely lost on what career I wanted in the future after transferring to a four-year college. Now as I am nearing the end of my two-year program, I am glad that I have been slowly starting to see a clearer plan of where I want to take my future with a degree in Mass Media and what I want to do in a career.
On March 4, I went on my first job shadowing and informational interview experience and it turned out to be an incredibly successful opportunity. I job shadowed owner, web and graphic designer Tracee Larson at Creatively Seeded.
I ended the session with a little side job for the next few upcoming months to gain more experience in the social media field and then to see where it goes from there. I also ended the session with an even better mindset about how I want to go through the next few years in my career.
Larson began her business about 15 years ago and has been working out of her home strictly on her business full time for the last five years.
As she has been dedicated to her business for so long, she has picked up a lot of helpful tips and pointers that I would not have even begun to think about with starting a business.
She gave me the advice for when I begin my career journey in the media business to, “work for a company to learn new ways to do things. And it is very nice to have that collaboration of teammates and a company to help you learn,” Larson said.
She also gave me information on how to work with people, clients or employers, and that communication is one of the biggest factors. She then gave me details on how to go about the backhand business side of things like taxes and an overview of l how she does what she does so well. These include, but not limited to designing websites, creating graphics and posts for social media and helping with branding for customers.
She also gave me helpful tips for when I begin to start my long-term goal of owning my own business in the distant future, “always be open to learning new things, be open to hearing out clients and their requests, being slightly flexible, but also be true to yourself,” Larson said.
Most importantly she gave the advice that I think anyone needs to hear at times which is to make sure you always take the time for yourself. Sometimes with working on your own you can work too much, so definitely keep yourself in mind as well.
What I most appreciated and found inspiring about how Tracee runs her business is how organized and how thought out all of her material is for her clients. I also noticed how she strongly cares about what content she is creating for customers and that she will put in all the necessary time and energy into branding for a customer until it is perfect. I also enjoyed how her office paperwork was professional, but you could also see a little personality to the brand which I think gives proof of the high-quality service she provides for her clients.
I learned a lot of helpful information about new web designing programs I have not heard about and why some are better and easier to use than others. I also expanded my knowledge of programs that I did know about and use, like WordPress, I noticed the different functions and capabilities it has that I have not come across before and that I would like to explore more in depth in the future.
