Chloé secured a placement opportunity working as an on-site producer on a reality TV show, and was then offered a job as a Production Coordinator with marketing agency Joi Polloi after she impressed them with her work on the show.

Chloé chose to study BA Digital Media Production as it gave her the opportunity to study in various areas of the media industry, including graphic design, events, photography, film and web development.

Joi Polloi created the social media platform that the players on TV show would use to communicate with each other. Chloe’s role was to be on-call if anybody in the gallery needed help with the software and to communicate with the team back in Sheffield.

‘Working on the TV show was a surreal experience - it was really interesting to see behind the scenes of the TV industry, what it entails, how hard the team works and how fast paced it is.’

‘My favourite thing about the course was having the opportunity to build on a variety of skills within the industry, such as graphic design, web development, photography and video production - all these skills would be incredibly valuable to most companies in the industry when you graduate.’ 

Her new role involves using many of the many skills she learnt on the digital media production course, such as social media management, content management, testing, video production and graphic design.

During her final year, Chloé secured two clients for her creative media project, AgeUK Sheffield and Barnardo’s, giving her a taste of the real world and the opportunity to develop client management skills such as strong communication, goal-setting and time management. 

She also volunteered at Sheffield’s DocFest as part of the events team, giving her the opportunity to network and build on her experience within different areas of the industry.

This year, Chloé is helping new students settle in and make use of the wealth of expertise around them, by running an Instagram account (@digitalmediashu) as a platform to share information and insights about the course from tutors, current students and graduates.

‘My advice to students that want to gain real-world experience is to do as much voluntary work as possible, really build on your portfolio, email small companies and ask if they would like any work, take it upon yourself to start on a project, attend networking events (you can do this online) and just don’t give up - hard work never goes unnoticed.’