Your Mindset

Each year brings interesting changes and surprising additions to the world of digital media.

The software you learn today will undoubtedly change dramatically within a few years, requiring you to update your skills and knowledge. Education is an ongoing process in every field. In digital media, it is an essential skill to continue to learn new software and computer skills required for your career industry.  Follow these five statements to become, and remain, a skilled master of digital media technology.

  1. Be flexible. There is always more than one way to do something
  2. Keep an open mind. Be willing to accept new ideas. For example, you may have always thought that the subject of every photograph should be in the center of the image. Be open to looking at images in a new way. Or, you may have thought that good software comes only from huge corporations. Become aware of the open source movement. Being closed minded makes it easy to get stuck in a digital rut. Work to avoid that.
  3. Use initiative. Using initiative in class can mean exploring possibilities other than just those given in a list of instructions. It might mean taking a project beyond just that assigned in the text. Learn to explore all the possibilities.
  4. Listen and read attentively. Listening to your instructor and reading the text carefully smooths the path to learning. Reading more than just the text and listening to those with expertise in the field of digital media opens your mind and turns you into an accomplished learner.
  5. Seek to acquire new knowledge and skills. Make a promise to yourself that you will continually seek new knowledge beyond that which is assigned to you. Be an active, engaged learner. Avoid the temptation to say you are finished learning. There is no “finished” in the world of digital media. Keeping current with industry software requires you to know how to learn. You will be seeking new knowledge on a daily basis.
  6. Be patient. This is not the Matrix. We do not have USB ports in our heads to download the information to create, design and use digital media software.