BACK TO SCHOOL
School has started up again, which here at Campos means backpacks and traffic are once again everywhere in Santa Monica. To celebrate the season, we checked in with some of our staff and found that everyone is still using at least one lesson from their school days on a daily basis.
What piece of your education has remained most useful outside the classroom?
“Presenting something in front of a group, or in front of a team.”
-Gina, Production
“Behavioral psychology. As nerdy as that sounds. I never thought I would use it in real life but I ended up using a lot of it, especially in production because things are so fast it’s definitely important to understand your teammates’ thought processes so that don’t have to keep asking questions, so you understand the intention behind their decisions.”
-Ruchi, Marketing
“In high school, I had one particularly interesting class called Technical Graphics. We learned how to draw construction plans, about planes, and how to draw in two and three dimensions. That is a skillset that I still use in work almost every day.”
-James, Creative
“Math. All the time. Algebra. sixth-grade level so nothing crazy, but it’s kinda funny that I’m an artist, sorta, but I use math almost every day.”
-Jourdan, Design
What did you think your career would end up being when you were in school?
“I was either going to be an architect or a U.S. Senator.”
-Eric, Production
“In grade school I wanted to be a Rockstar and performed at recess regularly.”
-Lori, Production
“Animator, specifically for Tom & Jerry.”
-Julio, Creative
“I wanted to have a career in social work.”
-Brittany, Accounting
“I thought I’d be an actress – and a famous one at that!”
-Jennifer, Sales
Granted, We’re all a bit cynical whether or not what we’re learning in school will be much use outside of the classroom, although some classes seem to have real staying power. But even those lessons often don’t translate into real world skills.
What classes did you think were useful but didn’t exactly pan out in your career?
“I constructed a 1 to 2 model of a spiral staircase for a building construction class. Made out of mahogany and cherry no less, with a steam bent handrail. I worked on it for about 3 months, I put all my time and energy into it more than any other class and it actually turned out really nicely. I aced the class and I thought “that’s fantastic I can’t wait to get my own place and build my own spiral staircase.” I have not yet applied any of those skills to my real life so far. But maybe in the future. “
-James, Creative
“All of it. I found that working was way more useful and productive than going to school. For me.”
-Lisa, Marketing
“Algebra I suppose. I had my doubts about its usefulness all along. What is X anyway? And why do we need to know that?”
-Lori, Production
“I use calculus in my work, but it’s not the calculus I thought I would be using in my life. When I was learning calculus I was thinking things like “Now I can calculate the speed a rocket needs to go to break free of earth’s gravity, that’s great!” It turned out that that brand of calculus was not super useful.”
-Ben, Digital
A lot of what we learned was useful. Other things, not so much. But the group consensus was that critical thinking, as well as social and teamwork skills, are the ones that we put to task every day.
