First meeting With Chris Kelly, Web and Data analyst, DC Thompson

I joined the Abertay Careers mentoring scheme as I thought  that getting paired with an industry professional would benefit me in developing my organisational skills, self-confidence, presentation skills and would prepare me with other skills/abilities to prepare me for the working world in general. Through this program I hoped to benefit by being more prepared for employment. By being exposed to an industry professional, I would become aware of how I would be expected to conduct myself in the workplace. In addition to this, I would benefit from the experience of a person currently in industry who could help me with developing skills or traits I may not know that I need to have/work on. This would give me a head start when looking for a job.

Firstly I would like to work on my online presence. A lot of my work will/could be freelance and on a contract-basis. because of this, how I conduct myself online is very important as this behavior will give an initial impression of how I conduct myself to prospective clients. Secondly, I would like to develop my presentation skills. Being able to present myself and being able to give the impression that I am confident and knowledgeable will help me in industry. Thirdly, I would like help developing my proposal and dissertation. I would like to know whether the topic I am looking at will help me in industry. I would also like to know what programs/software/skills that are used in industry so I can incorporate them into my work.

Currently, I am a university student (honours year). I have had experience with part time work and presenting to clients in third year through professional project. I currently have resources (lecturers) inside of university, and facilities like HIVE that can help with the development of my project however being partnered with a mentor and being able to experience a work environment through on-site visits will be very valuable to my development. This is because a work environment is very different to a university environment.

Problems that might occur to prevent me from achieving the best result in this scheme could be:

1. Personal/professional differences with my mentor that we don't work had to overcome.
2. Me not putting in the work/doing enough work. This would stop my mentor helping to their best ability because I don't have enough content for them to work with/I'm not acting on their advice/making the most of the process. 

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I found out via email form the careers office that my mentor was Chris Kelly from DC Thompson.
We arranged a first meeting and these are my notes:

• Main program used in his offices/for artists at DC Thompson is photoshop
• I shouldn't link my personal twitter to my Behance account, make a separate twitter/private my personal twitter. Only post positive things because thinks could be interpreted to make me look unreliable/lazy when this isn't true.
• My wordpress/online portfolio needs improving to make it look more eye catching/noticeable. He said people in his office can help with this.
• He said i need to be clearer about the area of art I want to go into so I can better prepare myself for applying for a job in this area. He said he would be able to get me into DC Thompson to see the different departments/shadow artists to see which areas I was interested in.
• He said he would be able to help out in developing my organisation skills. He advised that I plan my work week to week rather than day to day so if something comes up my plans are not entirely thrown off and I can move them around. (I can put this advice into real effect when planning my time in my  proposal for my second semester project.)
• He said he can help also with my presentation skills. He presents regularly in his job and sometimes has only five minutes to prepare for a presentation. He says the key is to be able to present yourself as if you know what your talking about and he can help me learn this. 
• He also said I will need to develop my interview skills and will set me up a mock interview with him and also the art director at DC Thompson to give me interview experience/advice. 

We also talked about my proposal title because at the point I was at, I felt I was focusing far too much on VR and less on other "abstract" forms of media that could help improve concept art.

Main points I was given that will help with my proposal:

• Concentrate on VR Painting to 3D print (Tilt brush to 3D model).
• "How do emerging technologies effect concept art & its application?" - Rather than just focusing the question on VR.
• Look at (Chanel?) Fashion Mirror.
• "emerging technologies" could constitute old technologies used in a new area of the first time.
• What does a new technology need to have/what does it need to be in order for it to surpass something/a technology or process already in place in industry.
• What are the obstacles? Cost/Time/Resources?