(Christine Muszynski) Attending The Children’s Media Conference this past week in Sheffield, England was truly a great experience. The CMC is the only gathering in the UK for everyone involved in developing, producing and distributing content to kids on all different platforms, and I was thrilled to take part in this year’s event. Being part of this was an enriching experience. Not only did I enjoy and have the pleasure of meeting different professionals in the industry, I learned a great amount about the field itself, and most importantly more about myself.
I had no idea what to expect attending my first conference. To be honest, I felt a bit out of place when I was first with the other attendees. I kept having this feeling of self-doubt because as of right now I do not have any professional background in this field. A reoccurring thought I had was “I’m just a student… I don’t belong here… I don’t even know what I’m doing” but after thinking about that, I realized I was right where I needed to be. Being able to have the opportunity to attend the conference allowed me to open my eyes and see all of the different career paths I could pursue in the near future.
As I’ve mentioned in my previous blogs, I had the pleasure of attending different workshops and sessions over the past few days. It was nice being surrounded by hundreds of individuals who all share the same passion for children and children’s media as much as I do. Throughout the past year or so, I came to the realization that I wanted to pursue a career in children’s media. I’ve been a nanny for quite some time now and I thoroughly enjoy interacting with kids. One of my favorite things to tell people is that you never realize how much you can learn from children, and this conference supported my belief. A reoccurring theme I noticed was that being talked about is that in order to be successful in this industry, we must always listen to the children.
I would also like to point out how well-organized this event was. There was an app created called “CMC 14” that I downloaded straight to my phone and it was a very useful and handy tool to make reference to throughout my day. One of my favorite features was the option to “star” or favorite different sessions I was interested in attending. This allowed me to plan out which sessions I wanted to attend ahead of time and it was a great reference point throughout the day. Overall, this app was very easy to use and helped me organize my schedule for the different days during the week.
To close, I’d like to thank everyone involved with organizing and welcoming my classmates and I to this conference. I left feeling inspired and filled with excitement to see where this career path can take me in the future.
Until next time,
Christine xx
