I am not a student.

I’m no longer a student. It feels odd to say. In many senses it’s true, but I can’t help but feel like I’m not telling the whole truth.

Jake adjusts the director cam before a performance of Festival of Carols

When I graduated from Goshen College with a BA in Communication just over two weeks ago, it ended my four years at Goshen College, but it also ended my 17 years of student-hood. From a small town elementary school in Kansas through college at Goshen, I was always a student. My primary focus was always (supposed to be) classwork. At the same time, I was an athlete, a member of my church youth group, a traveler, a boyfriend, a son, a fantasy football commissioner, a designer, and much, much more.

I’ve always enjoyed learning, although I never really identified that passion until the past year when I started to think about life after college—a life where learning specific bits of information is no longer a primary requirement of my everyday life. As life after college grew closer and closer, I wondered what I would do after graduation. I wondered how I would pay the bills.

As a student, I had the opportunity to work for three semesters at FiveCore Media. It was an incredible experience, working for a video production company while in school. And now, looking back, I see that I learned far more about film production from my work at FiveCore and my classes to Greece and to Kenya than I learned in the classroom. So when Kyle asked me to consider applying to work at FiveCore Media after graduation, I was immediately interested.

Jake Smucker and Chau Bui celebrate the 2014 bronze Telly award for the film Breaking Down Barriers: Journeys of the Apostle Paul

A full-time job at FiveCore would not just give me a source of income and an excuse to hang out with college friends for another year. It would also allow me to stay in an environment of learning. A business that focuses more on self-improvement and learning by experience than on maximizing profit margins. When Kyle offered me the job, I was thrilled to accept it and transition to a producer role, whose job is as much about helping others learn as it is about producing high-quality videos.

So as I transition from “student” to “staff,” I lose the title that has stuck with me for all these years. But while I may not be able to identify with it on my tax forms, I still know…I’m still a student of business. I’m still a student of design. I’m still a student of video production. And I don’t plan to ever stop learning.