Oliver Gwynne (Marketing & Media)
Oliver Gwynne
Class of 2006
Self-employed running Make My Media
"I work for myself running a little media production company called Make My Media. We’re based in The Electric Works in the heart of Sheffield.
I always believe it’s better to study something you’re not good at. I always knew I wanted to do something marketing/media related and was already familiar with marketing and had excellent English skills, but I certainly didn’t know anything about the technical nature in which adverts and films were put together so I took a media degree. Like most people I had an odd assortment of little jobs when I was studying.
I coached kids football, washed pots, was an admin assistant, worked at Primark whilst building up my portfolio with voluntary work for charities. From there I was lucky to get a foot hold into the industry which served me very well in working for myself."
The best and worst parts of your day-to-day?
"Working for yourself you have a lot of freedom and I get to work on quite a variety of projects. The best thing about my work is definitely getting to meet new and interesting people. To compare working for yourself and working for others I would say that in general my day to day life is more enjoyable than when I was working for others but when I have a bad day…its usually a REALLY bad day. So there’s upsides and down on both sides.
I’m hoping Make My Media will be able to grow in the next five years and we can expand our team with some fresh talent."
We ask our former students for one piece of advice which they would give to themselves as a 16 year old. Oliver's is:
"People focus too much on success or a list of goals. The real aim should be to give yourself the skillset, knowledge and assets to accomplish whatever it is you want. As an example as a child I wanted to be a pop star. I’m not talented or good looking enough for this, BUT I did study music theory and I can write music, and I understand the technical knowledge that goes into recording and producing, and I have the assets to be able to hire people to perform that music. So regardless of my terrible singing, I can still get music out there should I wish."
