Moving up

[PSUtheatre15]

Hello CB,

I just have something to get off my chest and would like someone's advise and see if anyone else was in my situation and what did they do to help move on from it or help them advance.

My situation: Well recently, at my theatre program there are techies but there were always two that people came to for advise, Me and my mentor (mainly audio questions). Everyone would go to my mentor first just because he was a upperclassmen(he also knew more) and I just got here as a freshmen(limited audio knowledge). My history of tech theatre was I knew some and always wanting to learn more. He was a teacher to me also and he knew our venue better so it worked out. But recently something happen where he got in trouble with the law or something that my fellow techies don't want to tell me. But now since he is gone. Everyone is looking at me to take all of his responsibilities and advise for audio. I didn't do a lot of audio in high school theatre mainly just lights and stage hand work. I just feel that even though everyone has been saying i doing a good job, I feel like it just not as good as him or what he produced in the past. There is still so much for me to learn and I feel like I'm now being rushed into everything. I want to do my best and impress my advisors and everyone. I just feel like I don't know enough yet to do that.

I guess to cut to the chase is has anyone else been in this problem or what are some learning methods they used to help them out. I have books and been reading them regularly just feel like I need more hands on experience with a lot of things.

Thank you for reading my venting session and thank you for helping me out with anything you can offer me.

 

[xander]

There's no better way to learn than by doing.

 

[josh88]

keep reading, and doing what you can and learn as much as you can. That being said sometimes you have to let people down and say "look I'm sorry, but I don't know" you can't be expected to know everything. But obviously it's helpful if you do. Especially if you aren't in official positions of knowledge or management above people and they are just coming to you because you know more. It's not your job, your job in college is to be a student and learn.

 

[Van]

I think josh88 hit the nail on the head. Learning that sometimes the answer is," I don't know." is a very important part of "responsibility". You may even have to have talks with you instructors. Let them know that while you apreciate their trust in you you are " hitting the wall" of your knowledge. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. No one can know it all, 'cept me.
By being able to admit tht you aren't an expert on something you are opening up the possibility to learn and you are demonstrating that you have to production/facilities best interests at heart.

 

[dmx]

Learning that sometimes the answer is," I don't know." is a very important part of "responsibility".

Perhaps the single best piece of advice I've read on this site in the past 3 years!

 

[shiben]

Hello CB,

I just have something to get off my chest and would like someone's advise and see if anyone else was in my situation and what did they do to help move on from it or help them advance.

My situation: Well recently, at my theatre program there are techies but there were always two that people came to for advise, Me and my mentor (mainly audio questions). Everyone would go to my mentor first just because he was a upperclassmen(he also knew more) and I just got here as a freshmen(limited audio knowledge). My history of tech theatre was I knew some and always wanting to learn more. He was a teacher to me also and he knew our venue better so it worked out. But recently something happen where he got in trouble with the law or something that my fellow techies don't want to tell me. But now since he is gone. Everyone is looking at me to take all of his responsibilities and advise for audio. I didn't do a lot of audio in high school theatre mainly just lights and stage hand work. I just feel that even though everyone has been saying i doing a good job, I feel like it just not as good as him or what he produced in the past. There is still so much for me to learn and I feel like I'm now being rushed into everything. I want to do my best and impress my advisors and everyone. I just feel like I don't know enough yet to do that.

I guess to cut to the chase is has anyone else been in this problem or what are some learning methods they used to help them out. I have books and been reading them regularly just feel like I need more hands on experience with a lot of things.

Thank you for reading my venting session and thank you for helping me out with anything you can offer me.

Listen to Van and Josh88. You should go to the staff people, and work with them. Sounds like the staff was rather hands off with this kind of stuff, but see if you can ask them to be more involved, so as you can learn. Further, this kind of thing happens. People go away for all reasons (I have a couple of ideas on things the dude probably did, this being technical theater in college) but not always getting sent to jail. Sometimes they get better jobs. You just need to step up to the plate, get the help you need, and show you care about the productions. Plus how you gonna get really good unless you do a bunch of stuff you dont really know how to do until someone gives you a vague outline and tells you to figure it out?

 

[PSUtheatre15]

Thank you guys. This def helped me in where I go from here. Since it all is a very unfortunate turn of events. I'm sure my instructors will understand me 100% especially where Im coming from.

 

[JFine]

I was actually on the other side of the coin. I was the mentor and was graduating and was rapidly trying to pass along everything I knew to the kid who was learning from me.

When I was learning, there were absolutely things I didnt know. But when that was the case, after telling someone I dont know, I made sure that I knew the answer for the next time. Sometimes that meant asking faculty, or spending some quality time on google, or posting something here, but thats how I learned a lot of what I know.

What I learned in training the new person is that a lot of the venue specific knowledge can only come over time and experience. Things you dont think to ask, or pass along because they only happen once in a blue moon but when they do you never forget. You can try and try to tell someone everything about a situation but that will only go so far.

Experience will be your best teacher. Not knowing is ok, just make sure you learn from it.

 

[StNic54]

Also, go to your local county sheriff's website, find out what your buddy did on the arrest reports, and don't do that.