Trust The Process

Growing up, I always thought working in sports would be the coolest job imaginable. Not in the “famous ESPN broadcaster” kind of way, but in the sense that you get to be around something you genuinely care about every day.

That is what made my practicum with the Delmarva Shorebirds feel different from any other job or class I have had before. For the first time, I was doing work that didn’t feel like work all the time.

Of course, that does not mean it was always easy. One of the first things I realized during my practicum was how much pressure I put on myself creatively. Every time I worked on a graphic or social media post, I wanted it to look perfect.

Unfortunately, Photoshop has a funny way of humbling people very quickly. I cannot even count how many times I accidentally deleted something important, moved an entire layer without realizing it, or stared at a graphic for twenty minutes trying to figure out why it still looked slightly off.

The worst part is that sometimes the problem was literally one tiny detail nobody else would probably notice. But once I noticed it, my brain refused to move on.

Thankfully, my supervisor, Ben, was always there to help whenever I got stuck. One thing I appreciated throughout the practicum was that he never made me feel dumb for asking questions, even when the answer was probably something simple I should have known already.

Instead of just fixing things for me, Ben would actually explain why something worked better a certain way or how I could improve it the next time. That made a huge difference for me throughout the experience.

At the beginning of the practicum, I second-guessed a lot of what I made because I was worried it was not good enough. Over time, Ben helped me become more confident in my own work and trust my instincts more creatively.

I started realizing that nobody expects you to know everything immediately, especially in a creative environment where so much comes from experience. I also learned that asking questions is a lot better than pretending you know what you are doing and accidentally making things worse.

Looking back, the practicum taught me far more than how to make graphics or organize media content. It taught me how to become more confident professionally, how to accept feedback without overthinking it, and how important it is to work with people who genuinely want to help you improve.

It also taught me that no matter how experienced you become with Photoshop, there will always be one layer that mysteriously disappears for absolutely no reason.