Opening Address - What's Current in the Creative Industries?

I found the opening to the week rather hilarious in all honesty. Dr Cunningham, the academic head of creative industries here at Glyndwr, arrived with what he liked to call a "pro-wrestler" entrance of which certainly made a strong impression! He explained to us that the main point of the week was for us to go out to these lectures, of which was a wonderful opportunity, & learn about our own development of our creative careers. We were to learn from the speakers mistakes & progress  from that, leading us to become contemporary design. Even though no one can really say what the next trends are in this industry (as that's entirely up to us, the new era of designers), we still need to learn about the basics of setting ourselves up. We need to promote ourselves! There is no chance of sitting like a duck & waiting for that dream job to magically fall into our hands. Also you need to improve your CV! Make people want to employ you & get a taste of what it's like before jumping in the deep end! There was also the problem of tax, this was not a lecture I looked forward to, for those wishing to go freelance. There are so many things you need to know for this career & this week would certainly help!

We then had a second talk from Sarah Mair Gates who spoke to us about Creative & Cultural skills. This introduced us to the Sector Skills Council ( SSCs) which is an organisation which trying to improve employability for workers in the UK. So for example if you were just missing a certain something from your CV for perhaps a higher level of work, for example leadership, the SSC would provide you the opportunity to work or learn to gain that skill, therefore improving your employability! This was then followed by the Creative Choices website. After looking at the website & receiving the explanation from Sarah I can see that this will become very helpful in the future. It assists you with your job by showing you case studies of people already working in your career, provides advice, the site even hosts job opportunities & training with easy to access, downloadable content!

 Dr Stuart Cunningham finally rounded off the opening speech with an explanation to the Welsh industry, which to be honest didn't really interest me. It is nice to know that having a degree will improve my chances of getting a career but I take no interest in working in Wales. I wish to branch out to Manchester once I have finished my degree here in Glyndwr. Other than that the opening was good & was a good briefing of what was to come during the week ahead.