What I Really Learned Working in London
There really shouldn't be that much pressure in student media, honestly.
What you’re about to read is my final essay highlighting my experience interning for Toy Soldier Films during my London semester (edited for clarity and removal of personal info). To Lea, Meghan, Orla, and Shelby at the Ithaca College London Center, thank you so much for the incredible opportunity to study abroad, something I’ve always dreamed of but never thought was possible. To Will, George P., George H., and Billy at Toy Soldier Films, thank you for being an incredible team of people to work for and with, and I can’t wait to see you back in the summer. To Rae and Michael, you guys were awesome co-interns and I’m very excited to see what you two do in the future.
Okay, sappy bullshit time over. Let’s get onto more sappy bullshit.
As of writing this final reflection [November 28, 2025], I have two more days with Toy Soldier Films: December 2nd and December 3rd. The time with the company has gone by faster than I ever imagined, and the fact I was in the office for two days a week didn’t help. At the same time, I’m grateful for how fast this semester has gone by. I can’t imagine leaving Toy Soldier Films, but I have to move on from this at some point. For many, an internship is just a foot in the door. Mine was, but it was also a symbol of perseverance. That I could make it in this industry. That there is more to media than just news, sports, and entertainment. That I did put my foot in the door, just not in the country I thought that door was in.
Growing up, I never thought that I’d be in this position. In a household like mine, the arts was just not there as an option. As an extracurricular that can get me into a good school with a nice engineering program? That was okay. As an actual career path? Absolutely not. Even when I was in high school applying for magnet schools in my district, my parents tried to talk me down from applying to the performing arts school because they heard horror stories of people never making it in the industry. I knew where my parents and family were coming from. When they were growing up, they lived in the slums of Manila, cramped in a small house and lived off what little money their parents made and the remittances the family who “made it” out abroad sent back. (Okay, I’m exaggerating, but it was just not a good time to be in the Philippines in the 70s and 80s to keep it short.)
Point is, I was the first generation. To be fully Americanized, to experience a (relatively) stress-free life. I didn’t have to worry about food on the table, I didn’t have to worry about getting a job young to support my family, all I had to worry about was studying, getting a good job, and maintaining the life I have right now. I didn’t even know my parents were taking on loans to keep me in school until my dad brought it up off-handed! That’s how much they want me locked in on my studies. Even with this work placement, they were hesitant on paying for the application fee and visa because they were worried it’d get in the way of my classes. And I’ll be honest, I felt that way too coming into this work placement.
The first week I walked into the Toy Soldier Films office, I knew that it was going one of two ways: it would be either the best experience of my life and I’ll forever be indebted to Will and George for taking me on, or it’d be the worst experience of my life and I’d be looking for an Etsy witch to curse the company while waiting for my flight back home from Heathrow Airport. Thankfully, this experience ended up being the former, but not for the reasons I thought.
If the point of a work placement is to learn about working in the industry through experience, this was 100% a learning experience, just not in terms of hard skill. Most people in my major back on home campus already are proficient in the things we learn at school, so Ithaca pretty much ends up becoming a four-year networking event. For the people who aren’t proficient at things, Ithaca becomes four years of consistent imposter syndrome because everyone else around you has been doing the thing you’re just now learning far longer than you have. This did a number on my mindset, attitude, and social interactions with my classmates for a hot minute (and sometimes still does) because I felt like I had to always play catch-up.
While I was grateful and mentioned my internship to some people back in Ithaca, something just clicked in me when I landed in London that told me, “You don’t have to tell people about it. Do the work, and the results will speak for themselves. It worked in Ithaca, so it’s going to work here.” And for once, I took my own advice. I didn’t immediately go on LinkedIn and boast it to the world, I didn’t run to the classmates I looked up to about this work placement when they have like 500 internships that are them broadcasting minor league baseball games, and I sure as hell put the work in if I was able to bring a TikTok account and YouTube channel from 0 to almost 1k in three months.
That’s what I really learned from this whole experience. The technical skills were a plus, but the meat of this work placement was discretion. Going from an environment where everyone is trying to be the next big thing to an environment where people are secure enough to say they’re already successful helped me realize that success isn’t defined by how recognizable your face or your voice is, but it’s defined by what you define it as. If success means starting a YouTube channel from scratch and hitting 1,000 subscribers in three months, then that’s success! If success means consistently using a piece of software that always intimidated you, then that’s success!
Working for Toy Soldier reframed the metrics for success. While I still do everything in my life for my family, how I approach that and what a good result looks like is now something that I’m in control over. In a similar vein, I still look for validation and approval from my peers, but it’s so much easier to just not think all the time. This past semester forced me to grow in ways that staying in Ithaca just would not have happened, and would have kept me trapped in that mindset. If not for Toy Soldier, I would not be as skilled or as matured as I am now.
I know I dropped the ball with those bi-weekly updates on Substack, but could you really blame me for trying to explore a brand new city that’s at my fingertips? Semester recap incoming, but thanks for reading if you made it this far.