Tutorial session with Adelina (SWOT ANALYSIS)

It's the fifth week of this module and it's now time to a one-o-one tutorial with Adelina. What I was asked to do was to prepare a SWOT analysis on which to reflect throughout the session.

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and here is what I came up with:

1. STRENGTHS: I consider myself to be very ambitious and driven by my passions. I believe I am a creative person who always try to come up with innovative designs and solutions. Every challenge I am facing I always try my best to face it with a smile and a positive attitude. One of my strengths is my advanced skills on Software like SketchUp and Photoshop. Also I consider my technical drawing skills quite advanced. Finally, I consider myself to be overall a confident person, not afraid to speak up for my ideas.

2. WEAKNESSES: What I am not extremely confident about are my sketching skills, especially my free-hand drawing skills. I have always struggled to find the best way to represent my ideas on paper. Also, I am quite weak with my writing skills: I have always been doubting myself whenever I need to express my thoughts or ideas by writing. What I need to work on is also my way to react to negative feedback and facing failures.

3. OPPORTUNITIES: I strongly believe that through these modules ("design in Practice" and "Developing professional Practice") I will gain the right skills to succeed in the film industry. Also, the opportunity we are given to meet all these designers is extremely valuable because it is going to give us insights of their world and their lives as professionals. We are given the special opportunity to learn from their experiences and their mistakes and that is probably the most valuable aspects of them all. Last but not least, at the end of the "design in Practice" module we are going to have the change to experience on our skins what it means to work in the film industry taking part of work placements.

4. THREATS: What I am more worried about is to find a way to manage my time in a way that I will not be overwhelmed by the amount of work to do for these two major modules. So far, I had the chance to listen to some of the guests experiences and I have to admit that the amount of hours they seem to work is huge and it might sound silly but I am scared that doing the job I love will not allow me to live a "normal" life. Obviously I have always knew that working in this environment would have been hard however I can't help but having this thought in the back of my mind. Another part of me instead is extremely excited to start my life a designer because I know that it is something I love doing and that is the main reward.

Coming up with this SWOT analysis helped my having a moment of self reflection focusing on what are my skills, my strengths, my weaknesses and my doubts about my future career as a designer. I found this exercise extremely helpful because this self evaluation was essential to let me analyse in a more objective way what I need to improve and what I need to focus on in the future.