Thank You ASR!

Prior to attending my freshman year of college, my ability to use a computer could be summed up in 2 skills: 1. Using Google 2. Typing in Microsoft Word. Outside of those two tasks, it was all in the dark for me. Things changed a little bit when my freshman year roommate, Liz, kindly taught me how to create a folder and illegally download music (bringing the skill count up to 4). But, in a generation where apple is more commonly associated with technology than with fruit, it was safe to say I was an outlier. Keeping all this in mind, I’m sure you can sympathize with the mental “Sh**t.” I uttered upon receiving my first assignment as an intern with ASR…revamp the YouTube channel.

Now, I know cleaning up a YouTube channel is no huge technological feat. I mean I’m not out there designing apps or coding in Python. But, for me, managing a YouTube channel clearly fell outside my area of expertise. After finally logging into ASR’s account, I spent the first 45 minutes just willing the ASR logo to crop appropriately so I could set it as the channel art. The tough part was, after I finished my fight with the crop tool, I genuinely didn’t know where to start. From what I could understand, bringing the channel up to date would involve downloading videos from Vimeo (a site I had absolutely 0 experience with), uploading them to YouTube, creating custom thumbnails for each, compiling playlists of relevant videos, adding tags, and organizing the channel’s home page. Considering I knew how to do approximately none of those things, I retreated to the comfort of pen and paper and began listing the videos I had to transfer from Vimeo to Youtube.

 My salvation came later that week in the form of Tina’s son, Max. Maybe she sensed I was in over my head, or maybe she’d intended it all along, but that Thursday, Tina had Max (who managed the channel previously) come in and show me the ropes. In those 30 minutes I learned things like how to download videos from Vimeo, how to create custom thumbnails, the best way to take a screenshot, etc. and instantly felt more confident about the task at hand. Although it took longer than expected, I eventually got through the hundreds of uploads and thumbnails and finished organizing a channel I’m proud of.

After my brief stint as ASR’s YouTube channel admin, I had the opportunity to work on other projects that challenged me to familiarize myself with Instagram (that’s right, I don’t use that either), Dropbox, Photoshop, and media kit compilation. I had the chance to sit in on a shoot, speak with a graphic designer, and, oddly enough, film a montage of video clips featuring a wet LVCC sign. Like my first experience with YouTube, I struggled initially with many of these assignments, but learned as a result. Throughout the summer, I had the chance to try different things and see what I liked and what I didn’t. I gained a sense for what it’s like to work in a business and for how I work best, all while being surrounded by great people who genuinely care about their work. My thanks goes out to all the staff at ASR for the great opportunity to work with them this summer. I wish them all the best!