Hey guys, my name’s Vincent, newest and greatest member of the Launchpad team (Obviously). 

Still being a high school student, I have a lot of different skills and best of all, I'm still impressionable enough to learn anything, though sometimes the impressionable part isn’t the best with the bunch at Launchpad.

I attend Collège Notre-Dame during the day and then, around lunchtime, I leave for co-op and I trek down the famous green stairs downtown to get to the Launchpad headquarters. Don’t ask me why I called it headquarters, it sounded cool in my head and I definitely do not regret it. My thoughts for post-secondary is computer science, but I haven’t decided where, as of now. 

Well there you have it, that’s me, now, let’s get on to what I’ve learned so far during my co-op placement. Let’s start with web design and development. I have had the honour of designing a beautiful website on my own. Though it was never published, mainly because it was for a fake company that I made up, I learnt a lot about the whole design process. Being a future computer science student, I only ever thought about the backend of websites because design was never my strong suit. So, there I was, trembling at the fact that I had to design something from start to finish. Yes, I admit, it wasn’t the end of the world, after all, it actually went very well, and I enjoyed the process. After that, I finally got to dabble with backend stuff in the form of databases. I got to edit and see how a website can use all the information you throw at it and make a beautiful looking page out of it. 

Moving on to some videography knowledge I’ve gathered during my placement. I have been doing a lot of modifications to the French videos we have been doing recently. I went from typical rookie to pretty comfortable with basic operations with Adobe Premiere Pro. I was in charge of making cuts, and re-organizing clips with different effects we wanted. I also made several different styles of fading in and out clips which was a cool experience. The way that it’s done with keyframes was a foreign concept before my placement, but now, it makes a lot of sense. Also, after I had some experience with video editing, I was able to have my own opinions on things that were professionally edited, things like tv commercials, movies, and YouTube videos. Throughout my placement, I developed an eye for video editing and I started noticing different things in other people’s videos. All in all, videography wasn’t something I ventured in before my placement, but I’m definitely more interested now, and I think I will continue learning about photography and videography after my placement has concluded. 

I believe that the branch of marketing I’ve learned the most about at Launchpad would be social media marketing. There are so many intricate tricks that I would’ve never even thought of unless I’ve been working in this field for years. I’ve been told and re-iterated countless times how important it is to keep a presence on social media. Either by posting announcements, pictures, memes, or even reposting other companies’ pictures or messages. Though the quality of the post is still important, you really need to keep a consistent schedule with frequent posts. We are always told in school, as a general rule, quality over quantity, but in this case, you really need a good balance of both. Now that we have consistency (also known as the quantity), we can talk about the quality. One way to do ensure good quality posts is to provide value to your followers. There is no one better to learn from on this subject then Cliff. His Instagram (@cliffnotes) shows how you can provide value to your followers to build a good rapport with them. Cliff’s Instagram segment provides people with meaningful tips regarding important business and life topics. I had a great time assisting in the creation of multiple “Cliff notes” and every time I learned something new.

There you go! To describe the co-op so far in one word: inspirational. They’ve reminded me countless times that just because I’m not familiar with something, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try it. They’ve been very supportive and always keep me busy, which is what I want in a co-op placement. Also, the creative space that I work in makes every other student jealous, which is a great bonus too, being able to brag that I have the best co-op out of everyone.