Rachel Kang ’19
I Know What You Did Last Summer! This is part of a series of posts highlighting the work of the Summer 2017 Digital Media Tutors (DMTs) from the Wilson Media Lab found in the Davis Family Library Room 220. Meet Rachel!
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Year at Middlebury: 2
Major: Computer Science + Political Science
What’s a DMT and what you drew you to this job on campus?
DMT stands for “digital media tutor” and the DMT program on campus is a great resource for both students and faculty. This job focuses on tutoring services for media editing programs, including Adobe Suites. I have some experience using these softwares, but I wanted to learn more and become more proficient in them.
What type of training have you received?
We went through each software on the iMacs in the Wilson Media Lab and created simple projects to better understand its functionalities.
Do you have a strong talent with any particular software?
Going into training, I felt that I understood Adobe Photoshop well, but quickly realized there was much more to the program than I thought. After a couple months into the job, I feel confident navigating both Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro CC the best.
What software tool would you like to learn better and why?
While Photoshop is a great tool for modifying images, Adobe Illustrator is a vector-based software that emphasizes creating graphics with precision. I’d like to take on a project that heavily uses Illustrator one day.
Tell me about some of the projects you worked on this summer. Were there any that were especially interesting or challenging?
One of the projects I worked on was a nature-based film series I made for a professor, using both Audacity and Adobe Premiere Pro CC. Starting from scratch, with only raw footage and some rough audio, I created short 4-6 minute films which turned out to be more challenging than I thought. Because I had no prior experience with film editing and Premiere, taking on this project really helped me understand how to navigate Premiere quickly and efficiently.
What advice would you give to any other Midd student interested in becoming a DMT?
An important part of this job is to have the drive to understand these softwares—you get out what you put into it! Pushing yourself to learn what some of these complicated softwares can do will not only be helpful for tutoring purposes, but also useful for any basic media-related needs you may run into in the future.
