Last week I gave a talk to 2nd Year BA photography students at the University of Northampton. The presentation covered the transition from student to working freelance architectural photographer. The talk is based on my own journey and highlights what I did well and what I would do differently with the benefit of some hindsight. The second year is the point in a course when students should be planning and targeting their efforts to make the transition into the media industry. Students that leave these decisions until later in the course appear to struggle with the transition and appear to take much longer to maximise their potential. The talk also shows how I applied valuable lessons in professionalism, planning and resource management, learnt in the construction industry and equally useful during my time as a student. I think this talk would be of great benefit to other media students and would be happy to talk to students or course leaders about it.