Daryl Tay.net

I’ve been sitting on this post literally for months. I thought I had it planned out when I made the social media jump and the theme was “What do you learn from school?” to be focused on what they key takeaways from your education should be. But now that I’ve gone back to MTV Asia, I find myself in an extraordinarily special position in that the stuff I learned with my student club, SMU Broadcast & Entertainment, really mesh well with what I know about social media, as well as looking at operations from a business point of view that business school teaches you.

Of immediate importance at this job, I feel SMUBE trained me the most. Serving a year as the director of music programming and another year of bring the vice-president helped me to learn a lot about the music industry, which of course helps me understand more about what I’m doing now too. It was also quite satisfying when I met someone who used to work with Universal (the label), who remembers working with Campus Radio and remembers our PR director by name.

It also taught me to juggle 352398235 things at one time. For those who think SMU is tough, believe me, running a club and looking over personnel requirements, radio air time requirements, sponsorship requirements, managing tight deadlines, putting out fires and doing everything professionally is what’s truly tough. But looking back, it really helped train me too. Everyday I step into this office and literally think I’m just working in an extension of SMUBE. The difference is, of course, everyone knows what they’re doing and does it well.

I’m quite a firm believer that what you learn in school (in or outside the class) should follow your interests and for me it did (media and entertainment). And I’ve made an effort to make sure that my future internships and employment have been in sync as well. For me, that works very well. I always get asked why I’m in MTV (specifically in programming or talent artist relations) because I’m a business student, and I always answer that’s where my interest lies. Does it put me at a disadvantage to the true media students from other schools? Well, maybe. I definitely don’t have the technical knowledge that they have, but when it comes to managing work, people, the labels and understanding it from a business/media/entertainment point of view, that’s an edge I have over a pure technical view.

That’s been my story and I’m sure it’ll change. How about yours? Has university or school in general prepared you for work? Taught you the skills you need? Or have you had torrid times during attachments because you were just not adequately taught what you needed to know in school? Be heard!