Eight graduates spoke about their paths into the profession, their individual wishes, achievable goals and the actual reality of the job. In addition to digital and print media designer Maike Bauer and freelance game artist Dominique Mowius, Emma Kipping-Hernandez, a prospective design assistant who wants to become a TV presenter, and Luka Nikolay, a prospective information technology assistant, also spoke about their training. Image and sound media designer Annika Müller gave application tips and shared her experiences in the job search. She now works as a local editor at the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, creates audiovisual media and hosts the podcast "Stadt mit K" with two colleagues. Tamara Geburzky explained the tasks of a marketing communications clerk, aspiring e-commerce clerk Florian Klein-Kölker gave information about his career path and Lina Heuschen is currently in the exam phase to become a digital print media designer. Overall, it was a stimulating session that provided good insights into the various bm training programs. The program continued with three information events from the bm areas (vocational college for media professions, vocational academy for media professions and School of Games).
In interesting workshops starting at 1 p.m. (a second block began at 3:45 p.m.), Simon de Payrebrune and Saman Razavi from the School of Games presented how to create your own game worlds and program games. The Vocational Academy for Media Professions presented flat design illustration with Elena Piras, Martin Premus showed his own news show, Marcel Stein made commercial processes come alive and Daniel Edel showed professional sound production. For the Vocational College for Media Professions, Valentina Tikko explained how programmers think, Martin Hoffmann showed the motion capture studio and Martin Zensheim edited images with Photoshop.
Back in the auditorium, Andrea Stein moderated the second panel discussion with representatives from companies, which offered a very exciting insight into the professional world of the media industry. Also present were Christoph Kohlhaas, innovation manager with a focus on games at Köln Business, and Julia Hiltscher, Director of Corporate Responsibility at ESL Gaming GmbH, both of whom also spoke at the Indie Game Fest in Cologne's Wasserturm Hotel yesterday (June 2, 2023). Other panel partners included Carsten Götsche, production manager at WDR mediagroup, and Simon Weidel from Bright Future GmbH, who reported on working for the early evening TV program and for interactive entertainment software.
"The personal advice opportunities and the exchange with students and alumni" was what one visitor to the career day liked. Like many other people interested in training, she had become aware of the bm at a trade fair. Potential retrainees also came to Sachsenring and asked specific questions, for example about training as an e-commerce merchant. "We are pleased about the interest in our courses and about many new participants in the coming school year," said Andreas Balfanz, strategic director of the School of Games. Anyone who still hadn't had enough after 5 p.m. could attend the Indie Game Fest after-show party from 9 p.m.