Jon Stauder’s role as cinematic director at Deck Nine Games is the latest in a series of positions as an animator, director in a variety of professional contexts. In this interview, he shares his journey from his time as a student and project lead in TCNJ’s novel game design and production courses to the work he is doing today.
Conversations With Creatives is a periodic series of interviews with media professionals and entrepreneurs who have carved out interesting career paths.
Justin Gaynor is Director of Web Applications Development for Weblications, a subsidiary of the Creative Marketing Alliance and host and producer of Big Unhappy Family: An On Cinema Fan Show on Adult Swim. He says the interdisciplinary preparation he received in his interactive major at TCNJ has been important to his success.
Conversations With Creatives is a periodic series of interviews with media professionals and entrepreneurs who have carved out interesting career paths.
Audrey Blumberg is the owner and editor of The Breeze, which serves Bridgewater, New Jersey and co-owner and editor in chief of Tapinto Flemington-Raritan, a hyperlocal news service for Hunterdon County, NJ. She started with the goal of becoming a reporter and editor for entertainment magazines. So how did she end up becoming an editor and owner of two hyperlocal news properties? She shares her journey in this interview.
Conversations With Creatives is a periodic series of interviews with media professionals and entrepreneurs who have carved out interesting career paths.
In nearly 20 years as a journalist, Pete Croatto’s has amassed bylines in such prestige publications as Grantland, the New York Times and Rolling Stone, among others. December 1, 2020 will see the launch of his first book, From Hang Time to Prime Time: Business, Entertainment and the Birth of the Modern-Day NBA. He’s also a columnist for The Writer, where he dispenses practical advice for aspiring freelancers. I spoke to Pete in November, 2020 about his professional journey from wanting to be the next Roger Ebert to becoming a full-time freelancer and published author. This is the first in a periodic series of #ConversationsWithCreatives.
Dear College Student,
First, congratulations on embarking on a great adventure. Whether you are just out of high school or you are starting college later in life, you are beginning an endeavor that can open up opportunities that you had not envisioned for yourself and your families. It certainly did that for me.
No doubt, you are anxious about how to make the most of this experience. You are getting a lot of advice – probably too much to take in at one time. I don’t want to pile on, but I do have some perspective, having worked with students for the last 30 years, as well as having experience in the corporate and health care sectors. Some of these tips are things I found personally helpful, and others are things that I’ve learned from some of the highly capable students with whom I’ve had the honor of working. Many are things I wish I had known when I was an undergraduate
This is the first question that I ask students who come to me for advisement. Here’s what I am really asking: What’s the life you are hoping for, and what do you believe or hope college will do to help you achieve that life? Often, students have only a vague idea of what they hope to get out of college, and that’s fine. Occasionally, (often a nontraditional student in either age or life experience), they have very clear ideas of what they want to do and how college fits into their life plan. That’s also fine, although I do encourage an openness to the possibility that your college experiences may lead you to alter your plans.
When I ask about the life you want for yourself, I am not just talking about the work you intend to do. What lifestyle are you looking for? Do you want to experience other cultures? Is it important for you to have strong ties to a faith community? Are you concerned about taking care of family responsibilities? Are you trying to figure out how people negotiate career, marriage and family? Do you need to figure out how to have the life you want while managing a chronic health condition or physical limitation? Are you concerned about how to achieve academic or professional success in a field where you haven’t seen people from your background? There are things you can do during your college years that can help you work out answers to all of these questions.
The value of articulating your dream for your life is two-fold. First, it keeps the focus on college as a means to an end, not the whole of your life. Second, as a faculty advisor, it’s helpful to me to understand what a student’s expectations, interests and considerations are. I might be able to suggest colleagues, alumni or organizations where the student might find people of like mind and interest.
You are more likely to reach your goals if you can begin with the ends in mind. That’s why your academic advisors may try to get you to come up with a tentative four-year course plan. It’s good advice, even though we know that it’s common for students to change majors once or twice before graduation. (By the way, changing majors needn’t affect the time it takes you to graduate, in most instances. Your first two years are usually general education courses that you’ll be able to apply to your graduation requirements regardless of major.) Planning backwards is a good way to help you figure out how to fit in the goals that are most meaningful to you. Want to go on exchange or do an internship? Work the eligibility requirements into your timeline.
Here’s something I found helpful during my college years: at the beginning of each academic year, I tried to set both academic and personal learning goals for the year. We each come to college with varying degrees of preparation for life. In addition to learning academic content and skills, we may need to learn a variety of practical, social and emotional skills in order to become the people we are striving to be. One of those skills is learning how to take care of our physical and emotional health while carrying a heavy workload. Learning how to be understanding and respectful of other cultures is another. Managing money and time is another. Understanding, setting and enforcing appropriate boundaries may be another.
List the personal development needs that you have noticed or that have been pointed out to you. Each semester, pick one to prioritize and make time in your week to devote some time learn about that thing. How do you do that with all of the other things you have to think about? Here’s a strategy that worked for me:
Many of us got into college by developing a habit of sequestering ourselves away from our peers. Some of us – students of color, first-generation college students – come to college without a peer group that shares our interests or that even understands what we are experiencing. We may find ourselves being the only person from our background in a class. When we’re around people who share our cultural or class background on campus, we are more likely to focus on our common social experience, rather than the particularities of how we’re doing in our classes.
But research shows that collaborative learning really benefits college students, and there may be creative ways that you can integrate your academic study with social concerns. That’s another reason to talk to your professors about how to structure your studies and co-curricular activities in a way that supports your development as a whole person.
Years ago, I worked for a major research laboratory whose research VP was a Nobel Prize winner. He used to talk about how, when he visited the labs of his research scientists and asked what they were working on, he was always disappointed when they only told them about their positive results. He’d ask them which experiments weren’t working as expected. That, he said, was where the breakthroughs were.
It’s not unusual to have experiences in college that shake your confidence. I keep a folder in my desk that has my essays from my first-semester writing class at Princeton. I’d placed out of the writing requirement, but took Lit 151 anyway, reasoning that it couldn’t hurt to have more writing instruction. I wasn’t prepared for the critical feedback I got. Similarly, I went into my first-semester psychology midterm feeling confident because I had studied diligently, gone to class, and done the labs. I was gobsmacked when my grade wasn’t an A. What went wrong?
What I learned was that my writing class presumed a greater knowledge of formal rhetoric than I possessed at that time. I’d passed my writing sample because I was a voracious reader, not because I knew as much as I needed to know about how to structure an argument. I lost points on my psych midterm because I didn’t provide enough elaboration in the short answer or essay sections. In my high school, a short answer was a phrase or sentence, and three paragraphs was good enough for the essay section. In college, my instructor expected at least a paragraph for a short answer and 1-2 pages for an essay. I knew the material well enough to do that. What I didn’t have was the social capital to understand the difference between what my teacher wanted and what I thought he wanted.
Even now, I am embarrassed to write about those midterms. You can imagine how mortified I was at the time. When this kind of setback happens to high-achieving students, there’s a temptation to beat yourself up and say you have to work harder. After all, putting in more hours worked in high school. But often, that just leads to more disappointment, frustration, and in the worst cases, disengagement.
What saved me was finding graduate students who understood my background and who could help me bridge the gap between my work and my teachers’ expectations. They affirmed that I wasn’t deficient or lazy. I just needed a cultural translator. Thanks to them, my grades improved as time went on. What’s more, my struggles led me to want to enter higher education to help develop and apply the kinds of collaborative learning models that I’d seen work in industry to the challenge of helping journalism students adapt to the growing need for STEM literacy in the communications professions.
Lots of students struggle in classes where they’ve worked hard and had expected to do well. Sometimes they worry that their life plans will be scuttled if they end up without a high grade. Particularly in your first year, this should not be your worry. When it comes time to apply for jobs and graduate school, hirers and admissions committees will be interested to learn about how you met challenges and recovered from setbacks. That’s part of how they assess your maturity and character.
Well, that’s pretty much it. I hope you have lots of fun. Welcome Week is usually a blast – enjoy. Best wishes for a splendid semester.
Prof. Pearson