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• Skills & Talent

Written by Sam Bishop, Junior Content Producer at Corsham Institute

My name is Sam Bishop, and I am a 19-year-old Junior Content Producer here at Corsham Institute. I started my apprenticeship in September 2017, and have found it completely eye-opening and rewarding, right from the start.

I wanted to do an apprenticeship after finishing sixth form as I felt that it was a beneficial way to learn and develop skills in areas I have an interest in, all while gaining a qualification and building a portfolio. The reason why I chose Corsham Institute is because filming, editing, social media, podcasts, writing, and other forms of digital media really appeal to me, and the amount of work Ci does in these areas, and the extent of their professionalism, was clear. There are many things I enjoy about my role. I enjoy meeting with new people with a variety of backgrounds, going to new places and shooting videos around a real range of interesting topics

Post-apprenticeship, I would love to do more film production work, with the skills I have developed through being at Ci and the experience I have in film studies from A-level, helping me to discover my love for the production and post-production side of filming. Whether I look for a position, internship, apprenticeship or University course is unclear at this stage, but Ci has helped open my eyes to discover my true passion.

The skills, both creative and business related, that I have developed is rather extensive. My time management has been improved, through trying to meet strict deadlines, forward planning and creating meeting arrangements. I have gained a greater knowledge of social media, through helping manage the Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts. The change from sixth form to apprenticeship is completely different. That was something I noticed quite early. With school, you were only really looking after yourself, with your lateness, punctuality, professionalism and approach to learning only affecting you. In an apprenticeship, if you are half-hearted with any of these factors, not only you feel it, but the others around you. Corsham Institute is very much a team, that pull together to create some fantastic pieces of work. That is because everybody works hard. Team-work and professionalism are by far the most valuable skills I have developed from being at Ci.

There have been many highlights so far in the apprenticeship, but these are by far my favourites:

• Filming, interviewing and editing a video with children’s illustrator Anna Currey
• Travelling to Cambridge to shoot a video with RAND Europe’s Hans Pung
• Running social media at the House of Lords for the launch of the Observatory app
• Assisting videographer Remco Merbis at the Vision Conference in Bristol
• Shooting and editing a short advert style video for Interactive Scientific
• Travelling to Gloucestershire to shoot a video for the Cyber4School® pilot
• Helping collate data for the Digital Corsham Safer Internet Day survey
• Editing the Safer Internet Day video under a strict timeframe
• Running the monthly social media report and the weekly communication report
• Learning filming and design at Cirencester College.

I would heavily recommend apprenticeships as I feel it allows you to improve professionally, while gaining valuable experience in a field of your interest, as well as meet new people and prepare you for a range of work environments, all whilst receiving a qualification. It is an opportunity I am delighted I had, and I can’t thank those at Ci enough.

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