arts@work

On 28 and 29 June 2012, 25 undergraduate students from the Departments of English Literature and Film Studies took part in a new course called arts@work. The aim of this course was to get students thinking about the connections between their current degrees and potential future careers in the arts, as well as providing them with valuable insights and advice from those already working in the arts. It also provided an excellent opportunity for networking.

There were six speakers who gave talks and ran workshops. On the first day there were three speakers.
Fran Poletti from the National Film and Television School gave a workshop on screenwriting. Fran was a film student at King’s herself so she also gave a talk on her path from graduating to her career in the film industry. Director and screenwriter Will Frears was in conversation with Andrew O’Hagan talking about his career in film and theatre.
James Spinney, who previously did an MA in English at King’s College London gave a talk on working as an independent film director and various ways in which to secure arts funding. Some of the participants in the course will now be working as runners on James’s next film.

There were also three speakers on the second day. Firstly students heard from Dominic Power who is head of Film Arts at the NFTS and also curates a film programme at the BFI gave a lecture and answered questions on film programming. In the afternoon students heard from Julia Ziemer, Events and Development Officer at literary charity English PEN and Sarah Crompton, Arts Editor in Chief of the Daily Telegraph. Julia talked about organising literary events and then did a workshop on organising a literature festival and Sarah Crompton was interviewed by the students about her career in arts journalism before running a workshop on what comprises good arts journalism.

These were two lively and enjoyable days and they enabled students to think about their degrees in a more practical careers based context. There was very positive feedback from the students about the course. Feedback included the following comments, ‘very detailed, helpful and varied’, ‘excellent speakers’, ‘good opportunity to think about where your passions might lead you’, ‘very well organised and very informative – ultimately a good experience’, ‘chance to ask questions of industry professionals’, ‘it was very good for inspiring the desire to work in the various fields, and for making us aware of some of the possibilities in the creative industries’, ‘I liked it and learnt a lot’ and ‘it was inspiring and food for thought’.

You can read further information at Arts@Work: Converting Degrees into Careers a blog entry by Eleanor Sleet a student in the English Department who took part in the course.