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Prior to the outbreak of covid, I lived and breathed working, pausing only for a bite to eat or to sleep. I spent 16 hours of my day furiously flitting between a desk job at an event security company, working box office at a multitude of Glasgow’s music venues, selling merchandise for artists big and small and assisting with VIP Meet and Greets for the likes of Britney Spears and beyond. If I had days were I would only be working a couple of hours, I would wait impatiently by the phone hoping someone would need a shift covered. My life was Glasgow’s music industry and it had been that was since I was 18 years old. However, come March 2020, it all came to a very abrupt and devastating halt.

As the virus started too manifest in Scotland, the life I had know was taken from me like a rug being pulled from under my feet. I was made redundant from my desk job and there was no gigs or events to work. I went from a bursting schedule to absolutely nothing in the space of a week. I had to move home and leave my friends and Glasgow behind. Despite being initially shattered by the sudden change, it has been a much needed wake up call. I spent the first few months of the Scottish lockdown going on long walks, reading and feeling sorry for myself. It took me much longer than it should have to realise live events weren’t going to be returning as soon as I hoped. I got myself a job in a small shop in a small village and much to my own disbelief, I absolutely adored this job. Especially one of my colleagues, an older Australian lady who had settled in the village after travelling the world. She told me stories of her travels and experiencing different cultures and that’s when I realised I don’t know anything about the world beyond Glasgow and music. 

I had been so driven by the aspect of a career in the music industry I had never thought about travelling, I had never thought about experiencing different cultures, I had never thought about doing anything else. I never realised till lockdown how much I love reading, how much I love gaming, how much I love storytelling and how much I love learning. The ultimate realisation being how little I know and how desperately I want to know more. So I made the decision to return to learning and to expand my horizons even more, I decided I wanted to study abroad. 

I spent days looking at courses all over the world where I could learn about what I’m fascinated by. I found the Media and Creative Industries course at Erasmus University Rotterdam, Media Creation and Innovation at the University of Groningen and Business Administration with Entrepreneurship and Management in the Creative Industries at the University go Amsterdam.  I've made attending one of these courses and experiencing the culture of The Netherlands my main goal. I am fascinated by media and having run a successful music blog alongside studying and working in the creative industries, I feel these are the perfect courses to achieve my need to broaden my horizons. The majority of my experience is within the music industry, but I love books, games, social media and consume so much media in my day to day life. I want to know more and utilise that in a career. 

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For Amsterdam I have to sit a GMAT test which contains a lot of daunting mathematics. I am already in full study mode so here's hoping I can keep my head down and score a 600! Excited to see what the outcome will be!