Five Year Plan - Professional Practise

Here is my five year plan for my academic and work life. For this plan, I have opted to look into the role of a showrunner.

First Year (2016-2017)

In this first year, which I am currently in the middle of, is the first year on my college course. As such this year will for the most part at least be mostly dedicated to the course. This will help me on my career path due to me learning some essential skills for the creative media industry. In addition to this, being on this course will help bring me closser to the desired future career of a TV showrunner, as it will help me have a better grasp and understanding of the industry.

Second Year (2017-2018)

This second year in my five year plan is also the second year of the college course I am currently on. As such this year will again mostly consist of work for the course. However this being the last year that I am in college for, that will of course warrant me strongly considering which step to take next. I am fairly adamant about not going on to university, but I will nonetheless likely take some time to consider my final position on this. By the end of this course, hopefully I will have demonstrated a strong enough ability to pursue the career of my choice, that of a TV showrunner. In addition to this, I will hopefully at this point have completed some scriptwriting and writing concept shows to help flex my creative story skills.

Third Year (2018-2019)

This third year is scheduled to be the first since completing my college course. With my opting to avoid university, and most likely an apprenticeship as well, this year will likely begin with me trying to get onto my chosen career of a TV show showrunner. One way of getting into that career is first setting up a solid reputation as a fairly known writer of episodic television. So in addition to putting foward ideas for potential TV shows and planning those out, a sensible idea would be to get aquainted with those already in the industry and apply to write individual episodes for television shows, for example a longrunning soap opera would be a sensible place to start.

Fourth Year (2019-2020)

During this fourth year, the second since finishing mainstream education, I will have hopefully begun building up a solid portfolio of work. Although some people can get lucky and sell an idea for a TV show immedietely and become a showrunner that way, a common way of getting into the job would be to write single episodes of TV series, and perhaps even some films as well, although generally I would prefer to work on television instead. As such, continuing to work up a strong portfolio of work would be preferable, and hopefully I will continue to be writing individual episodes or perhaps a string of episodes for TV shows. Science fiction, thrillers, superhero, action and horror are some particular genres I would like to get into, in addition comedy is another genre I think I would excel in and enjoy. However I won't turn my nose up at other genres such as romance and soap operas, which I could see myself do fairly well in.

Fifth Year (2020-2021)

This fifth year is the final in my five year plan for getting onto my chosen career. By this time I like to think that I have solidified my status as a good writer and a good candidate to become a showrunner. Although a career solely writing individual episodes of TV shows would still be one which I would be more than satisfied with, I would also like to eventually progress onto becoming a fully blown showrunner for a TV show. I could perhaps start off on a smaller channel such as Syfy, which is growing in popularity and I feel my chosen subjects for shows would fit this channel extremely well, however a career solely on channels on this would not be unsatisfactory to me, I would be more than happy with that. If I did manage to get onto larger mainstream channels I would consider that a strong bonus. With a blossoming career underway, hopefully it is around this time that I will begin to be able to successfully sell my ideas and manage to become a showrunner for a TV show, perhaps even for an already existing show in need of a new showrunner. However as it is not a career with definate steps and timescale, it may take many years longer to go from a writier of individual TV episodes to a full showrunner, or conversally I may manage to get lucky and become a showrunner far earlier in my career, perhaps even without starting off as a writer for other shows.