As part of the DE502 marking criteria, I was encouraged numerous times to relate this project to any future career plans that I may have. I was largely encouraged to make a LinkedIn profile, and to demonstrate how my CV has progressed over the course of this project. I struggled to find the motivation to do this, as my current career plans feature design engineering as more of a backup plan. After I’ve achieved my BEng degree, I currently plan to go on to undertake a PGCE (a teaching qualification) focused on teaching GCSE mathematics, and then to take a year off and travel with any savings that I accumulate in that time. While I do this, I will simultaneously be focusing on developing my career in music and performance. I have wanted to be a performing musician since I was very small, and I have no intentions on giving up that dream while I am still young enough to be able to dedicate my time to it.
I am fortunate enough to already have a small online presence that I use to promote my music, as well as to make silly short videos to share my experiences in life. I was initially very hesitant to make any content online related to my project. I use a pseudonym online (sleeps) as I find it helps to separate my “Internet Persona” from my “Real Persona,” and I was largely concerned that using my platform to my advantage would begin to blur the boundaries I have set in order to keep myself (and my friends and family members) safe.
In an attempt to get around this, I left this idea until 08/05/2023 (4 days before the portfolio deadline) to ensure that I wouldn’t have time to publicly post further videos related to the project. This was also largely to avoid the course of my project being altered by too many outside forces at once. By leaving it to the end of my project, I ensured that I wouldn’t be swayed by advice from sources that are not certifiable. As the saying goes, never take overly personal or professional advice from the internet.
While this method of taking a public survey is neither professional nor composed, it was the most efficient way to garner the greatest number of responses. Due to the nature of the app (TikTok), videos tend to get more reach and response when the viewer does not have to go to any external sites to complete a task. By using the app’s built-in features as supposed “answer boxes”, I managed to ensure that the questions posed definitely received responses.
Below is a short video I posted to reach out to try promote this project, as well as to get a feel for how much a real life demographic would respond to the core concept of my idea.
This video was left up for 24 hours before harvesting results, to ensure that the video reached as many people as possible while still allowing time for me to focus on other aspects of the final stretch of this project. The video ended up with 536 views, 98 likes and 10 comments. Of these comments, 8 were in support of the project (see below for examples), 0 were negative and 2 were not related to the questions posed in the original video. This resulted in 8/8 of opinionated comments being in support of my idea, confirming that they would be interested if such a product were to become available en masse.
I would like to note that due to the nature of social media algorithms, this attempt at outreach is NOT unbiased. The demographic reached by the above video will tend to match the demographic of my other videos, which tends to be adolescents and musicians.