My Background
I was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama. Me and my mom live in Daphne, Alabama with my brother. I graduated from Murphy High School on May 17, 2016 and I am about to enter my second senior year at Spring Hill College. I major in communication arts with a concentration in journalism and I minor in graphic design as of now. I am both a gamer and a movie buff who enjoys chatting about those two topics and I have an account on the movie reviewing website Letterboxd. I was a writer and editor for the SpringHillian, the newspaper for SHC. On my account, I have logged in nearly 600 reviews for movies. Coming in the communication arts field has helped me gain some confidence in trying out more daring projects and challenging myself by going to places and doing things I never did before. I work on video editing, journalism articles, graphic design projects and interviewing people.
My goal is to figure out what I really want to do when I leave college. I developed skills with writing over the past few years. After switching my major from graphic design to journalism, I now want to work in the media world. Specifically, I want to be a reporter on entertainment media like video games, movies, television, books and music. I want to review and analyze these types of media to see how they effect modern audiences and what they are teaching the audience. I can report on the type of media that I want to report on and I can use graphic design to promote my content in a visually pleasing way. Design will follow me wherever I go. However, I feel more confident in my writing than I do in my design skills and that might be because I can express myself or convey my feelings better in writing than in design.
My goal is to figure out what I really want to do when I leave college. I developed skills with writing over the past few years. After switching my major from graphic design to journalism, I now want to work in the media world. Specifically, I want to be a reporter on entertainment media like video games, movies, television, books and music. I want to review and analyze these types of media to see how they effect modern audiences and what they are teaching the audience. I can report on the type of media that I want to report on and I can use graphic design to promote my content in a visually pleasing way. Design will follow me wherever I go. However, I feel more confident in my writing than I do in my design skills and that might be because I can express myself or convey my feelings better in writing than in design.
Major Skills
Major Skill 1: Using Adobe Software for Graphic Design
*Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign during my graphic design classes and Adobe Premiere Pro.
*Helpful skill for projects creating signs, artwork, brochures and even editing videos.
*Used for my graphic design classes and I used Adobe Premiere Pro in Intro to Media Production.
*Used Adobe Illustrator for other projects such as a poster for a tennis event and a poster for a Mario Kart tournament.
*Used Premiere to edit footage to create videos of interviews and processes.
*My grades have all been As and Bs in all of these projects.
Major Skill 2: Photography
*I use a Canon camera.
*Specialize in artistic shots with and framing for visual storytelling.
*I can also use my iPhone for photography whenever there are sudden moments that I want to capture.
*Used photography in many of my classes.
*Learned about the importance of visual storytelling and framing.
*Used this skill journalism classes where to have a photo alongside an article.
*Helps to make an article more visually interesting and to catch the reader’s attention.
*Taking photos during special or sudden moments with my iPhone when I need to.
Major Skill 3: Writing and Presenting
*Write a lot for several different subjects such as communication, history and literature classes.
*Use Microsoft Word for my writing and Microsoft PowerPoint whenever I need to present with a solo project.
*Write movie reviews on a website called Letterboxd where I can review movies that I watch or go see in theaters.
*Gives me the opportunity to write about a topic I am passionate about.
*Essays for my English classes, articles for my Advanced Newsgathering class, speeches for my Public Speaking class and research papers for my history classes.
*My grades have been consistently high with my papers and I think I get better with each paper I write.
*One of my English teachers even told me she would use one of my papers as an example on what to do for a paper.
*Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign during my graphic design classes and Adobe Premiere Pro.
*Helpful skill for projects creating signs, artwork, brochures and even editing videos.
*Used for my graphic design classes and I used Adobe Premiere Pro in Intro to Media Production.
*Used Adobe Illustrator for other projects such as a poster for a tennis event and a poster for a Mario Kart tournament.
*Used Premiere to edit footage to create videos of interviews and processes.
*My grades have all been As and Bs in all of these projects.
Major Skill 2: Photography
*I use a Canon camera.
*Specialize in artistic shots with and framing for visual storytelling.
*I can also use my iPhone for photography whenever there are sudden moments that I want to capture.
*Used photography in many of my classes.
*Learned about the importance of visual storytelling and framing.
*Used this skill journalism classes where to have a photo alongside an article.
*Helps to make an article more visually interesting and to catch the reader’s attention.
*Taking photos during special or sudden moments with my iPhone when I need to.
Major Skill 3: Writing and Presenting
*Write a lot for several different subjects such as communication, history and literature classes.
*Use Microsoft Word for my writing and Microsoft PowerPoint whenever I need to present with a solo project.
*Write movie reviews on a website called Letterboxd where I can review movies that I watch or go see in theaters.
*Gives me the opportunity to write about a topic I am passionate about.
*Essays for my English classes, articles for my Advanced Newsgathering class, speeches for my Public Speaking class and research papers for my history classes.
*My grades have been consistently high with my papers and I think I get better with each paper I write.
*One of my English teachers even told me she would use one of my papers as an example on what to do for a paper.
My Movie Reviews
Before I came to college, I wrote reviews on nearly every movie that I watched on Letterboxd. I have a passion for film and I found enjoyment in writing about my thoughts on movies. I have been reviewing films since 2016 and I try to go into detail about what I liked and did not like about the film. I cover all genres of film, but action films are my favorite films to watch. Watching film and talking about film both help me relax and think critically. Writing reviews for movies helped me improve my writing skills because it made me more detail-oriented when it comes to my writing. Also, taking journalism classes has helped me become a better movie reviewer as well.
Here is a link to my Letterboxd account: http://letterboxd.com/jaro235/
Here is a link to my Letterboxd account: http://letterboxd.com/jaro235/
My Personal Goals
1. Work in the video game industry. I have always wanted to have a job that involves gaming whether I am creating games or writing them. I could even see myself reviewing games or writing about gaming news.
2. Work in the movie industry. That is my second biggest passion in the world. I would want to write about films or write the scripts for them.
3. Find out what I love to do. This is the biggest goal for me because I want to find out what kind of work I enjoy. The worst feeling is having a job that makes you miserable.
4. Leave college feeling more confident than ever about myself.
5. Build better social skills and leadership skills. I feel much better about these two with my time at Spring Hill College.
6. Use my writing and design skills in a work environment. I want to push myself when it comes to my two main subjects of interest.
2. Work in the movie industry. That is my second biggest passion in the world. I would want to write about films or write the scripts for them.
3. Find out what I love to do. This is the biggest goal for me because I want to find out what kind of work I enjoy. The worst feeling is having a job that makes you miserable.
4. Leave college feeling more confident than ever about myself.
5. Build better social skills and leadership skills. I feel much better about these two with my time at Spring Hill College.
6. Use my writing and design skills in a work environment. I want to push myself when it comes to my two main subjects of interest.