Question for anyone with any experience working as a creative at any position. I want to hear your story and what you would do differently or the same if you were me.
I am a recently graduated marketing student. I am sharp, creative, and artistic. I pride myself in bringing creative visions to life through photo, video, painting, and drawing. I have never taken a structured course that helps me hone these skills into something that can really be applicable to some type of creative role. I felt like - in college - I learned the same repetitive marketing strategy structure that honestly, I barely remember and had very little fun doing in school. Rebranding/repositioning companies like Spirit Airlines(rip) or partnering with a small local San Diegan business to rollout a new campaign for a dumb promotion. I have one mentor/friend and I call him that because he does pretty unique odd creative jobs for boutiques and restaurants and has a seemingly steady income job working with a larger artist(painter) who also has a clothing line. He doesn't owe me anything but still critiques my art in a way that gives sometimes helps me get to where I am trying to go. He gives me small pieces of advice and rants to me about the senior level people not knowing what to do and I love that I get that advice from him but in the grand scheme of things - I dont know where to go or what to do.
To get very specific, I turn 24 in a few days. I work at a restaurant that I only makes money in the summer and I am trying to figure out what I can do now to get the ball rolling for myself to eventually be working under a mentor or with a team that gets hired for fashion(my main interest)
I have been reading random Reddits about people who are Art Directors and Creative Directors to get a better understanding about how things work but there is just so much. I know this post is a little all over the place, but thats kind of how I am feeling after being spit out of school with what I feel like is a pretty pointless degree and a lot of ambition but not sure where to focus it.