Social Media

Regardless of if I stay in UK or go back to Nigeria or even end up another country, I’m going to keep working on building my social media platforms and working towards being able to make money from the internet. Luckily this is something that can be done anywhere however in my case, I’d rather […]

Family Business

If both the PhD and job hunting paths fall through my only other choice is to go back to Nigeria—I wouldn’t even call it a choice, my visa would expire so I would have to leave. If I end up going back to Nigeria I’d have to take a year long “work course” which is […]

Job Hunting

Along side my PhD application, I’m also going to apply for jobs as another back up plan. At the moment I work part time in an asian restaurant as a server, however I would need a full time job that would sponsor a work visa for me. I’m not interested in working as an animator […]

PhD

Originally I wasn’t going to apply for a Phd program but around the beginning on this year I had a change of heart and decided to apply. I believed that a PhD only had a research option, however I later discovered that I could still do practical work. I began to research different PhD programs […]

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Social Media

Regardless of if I stay in UK or go back to Nigeria or even end up another country, I’m going to keep working on building my social media platforms and working towards being able to make money from the internet. Luckily this is something that can be done anywhere however in my case, I’d rather stay in UK because I have more freedom here and access to what I need to build my social media. I haven’t been able to keep up with my online presence because of the project, however afterward I’m going to go back to regularly posting on Youtube and TikTok, those are the two platforms I’ll focus on. I’ll still keep updating my instagram by posting clips from TikTok and Youtube as well as my art, I don’t plan to completely abandon my Instagram. There’s not a very specific kind of content I want to make, I’d want to post different types of stuff to see what sticks, but the way the internet works it’s best to find a sort of niche and build an audience around that. Be that vlogs, commentary video, art videos, dances videos, fashion and clothing videos etc. In an ideal world I want to be able to post a variety of content or else I’ll get bored if I’m forced to stick to the exact same thing.

A way I want to work around that is to mix two or more things together to keep it interesting. For example mixing fashion and art, I could draw popular anime characters in the same clothes as me or put together an outfit based on the character. Dance and vlogs, I do a lot of dancing as a hobby so I could just turn it all into vlogs and still post dance videos and some tutorials too. After thinking about what kinda of content I want to make I’ve zeroed in on wanting to mix art, dance, and videos similar to what the “Beta Squad” does on YouTube. To be more specific Art and Dance for TikTok (and instagram) and the “Beta Squad” type of videos for YouTube as well. 

The second I’ve submitted everything I’m going to be throwing all my time into continuing to make content. In the end this is where I want to build up my career, I can apply all the skills I’ve acquire from university into my content and from there—if/when I succeed— I will pick up other career ventures, like fashion, selling merch, and collaborating with others etc.

Social Media
Social Media

Above is the youtube channel I started last year, my subscriber count was slowly growing when I was uploading regularly, consistency truly is key. Also, beside that is an example of the kinds of “mix media” content I want to start posting more of.

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Family Business

If both the PhD and job hunting paths fall through my only other choice is to go back to Nigeria—I wouldn’t even call it a choice, my visa would expire so I would have to leave. If I end up going back to Nigeria I’d have to take a year long “work course” which is something every Nigerian citizen has to do before they can work. I’d much rather not to do that so I would end up working for my dad instead, either in his university as lecturer or something with marketing and graphic design. Neither of these prospects are things I’m particular passionate about or remotely interested in. However, I would do it as a means to get by in the beginning while working on my side projects, I’ll be doing things in the much more creative field and building up connections especially through my oldest sister—she knows a lot of people. And use whatever resources I have around me to get what I want.

Back in Nigeria there’s a more clear path laid out for me by my parents, which is working in the family business. I’m not completely against that but that’s not what I want my whole career to be about, I still want to have something outside of that. But it’s all about taking small steps and a lot of times I need to do things I don’t want to in order to get to where I want to be, this is one of those examples.

Family Business

Here’s my dad’s university, located in Nsukka, Nigeria. So I might end up working here, but I’d rather stay in one of the cities, either Abuja or Lagos.

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Job Hunting

Along side my PhD application, I’m also going to apply for jobs as another back up plan. At the moment I work part time in an asian restaurant as a server, however I would need a full time job that would sponsor a work visa for me. I’m not interested in working as an animator or doing anything in production, I’m far more interested in working pre-production or post-production, so I’ve been looking at character design, storyboard, editing, compositing and even script writing jobs. I’m also going to apply for jobs as a producer because 1) it’s something I also have experience in and I know I can do it, and 2) we’ve been told there’s a shortage of producers so I might have a slightly higher chance.

Here’s some links for a few jobs I’ve saved that I will apply too. Of course, I will apply to many more jobs, eve if ‘m under qualified for it I’m going to apply because you never know. And I’ll figure it out on the job—I’m a quick learner. Hopefully with the help of some online CV and interview hacks, I’ll be able to land a job as a backup plan in the PhD plan doesn’t work out.

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?currentJobId=3919621913&keywords=character%20designer&originalSubdomain=uk

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/film-producer-jobs-london/?currentJobId=3870307455&originalSubdomain=uk

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?currentJobId=3904664496&originalSubdomain=uk

As an international student, job application have an extra thick layer of struggle, because the company needs to pay extra for sponsoring our visa’s to stay in the country and work. So when placed side by side with a none international applicant with the same skills—or even less—than me, the company is more likely to choose the home applicant to avoid the visa sponsorship fee. There’s actually nothing I can do about that other than hope for the best and make really good connections and some VIP networking to give me a bigger push into the industry. With the work I’ve done for this current project and previous ones I’m going to build a portfolio for character design, background design, and a showreel for After Effects.

Job Hunting

Here is my CV, after submissions I’m going to also design a new business card.

Link to my website: 

https://somtoonyishi.wixsite.com/artist

Job Hunting

This my old business card design from when I was in my BA. I won’t make major changes, mainly removing the “director” title and going for something more broad.

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PhD

Originally I wasn’t going to apply for a Phd program but around the beginning on this year I had a change of heart and decided to apply. I believed that a PhD only had a research option, however I later discovered that I could still do practical work. I began to research different PhD programs to apply to and look into what kind of course I could do. After discussing with multiple people I settled on choosing VR as my subject. I spent roughly two months writing up my researching proposal and preparing everything for my applications. It was more time consuming than expected and I ended up falling a little behind my schedule for my film but I managed in the end. I applied to two universities, UAL and UCL, I also planed to apply for RCA, however their applications were closed and I also wanted to apply for Goldsmith, but I wasn’t able to find a supervisor in time—which was one of their application requirement. On top of that I became too busy with working on the film and preparing for our grad show I wasn’t able to pull it together.

I choose to continue with furthering my education for a multitude of reasons, the first reason is to do with wanting to give myself more opportunities in the future, a PhD degree can open more doors for me, especially when I inevitable return back home to Nigeria where higher education is heavily sought after. The second reason to give myself more time in this foreign country before retuning home, I have more chances to build my personal career (social media) here the way that I want to, whereas back home I’d have to follow my parents path and it’s too soon for that. Lastly, the animation and general art industry is still underdeveloped in Nigeria so taking home the knowledge and discovery from my PhD will help push us along, of course with the help of other creatives that are wanting to grow the animation and art industry in Nigeria too.

At the time of writing this, I haven’t received an answer yet on whether I’ve gotten accepted or not… so fingers crossed for good news.

PhD

Above is the outline of my research proposal that I submitted to both UAL and UCL.

PhD

Above is a screenshot of some of the articles and journals I read to support my research proposal.

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