In this guest lecture, we learnt about opportunities available to us after we graduate, and were also quizzed about our knowledge on a variety of topics.

Today’s lecture was presented by Helen McCarron, the Careers and Employability Advisor (Arts), and Claire Butler, who is the Student Enterprise Coordinator. The lecture was interesting, and began with Helen and Claire showing us the rise in freelance over the years, giving figures like “30% of people are working in creative media are freelance”. The majority of graduates from Audio Production who are working in creative media are freelancing. This is something I worry about, as I don’t feel I have enough experience at the moment to jump right into freelance.

They then quizzed us on some topics that self-employed freelancers would need to know to work and earn money effectively, and I didn’t score all that well. Clearly I need to read up in tax payments, thresholds, invoices and business expenses!

Thankfully they showed us that there are plenty of workshops available in the following semester to help us learn this vital information, with assistance available on pricing your work and ensuring you’re paid fairly, and numerous workshops on financial planning, inspiration and ideas, trademarking, and a whole host of other useful subjects.

I’m happy I attended this lecture, as freelancing is something I still find terrifying to think of. It feels very insecure, and I’m not sure if I would be organised enough to deal with everything necessary to be a successful freelancer. However I’m glad there are workshops and other assistance available, and I fully intend to go to these in the next Semester.