The school of advertising & marketing

I hesitated long and hard about joining The Atomic Garden, and had a lot of doubts about whether the school would meet my expectations. Now I can safely say that it was more than worth it. I met many professionals of this market and learned more in six months than others do in four years of university. And, of course, I got the job I wanted and loved. What more could you ask for?

I trained at The Atomic Garden because I thought that later on, like on Mad Men, I would have a secretary and wearing a suit, with a cocktail in my hand, I would be explaining to clients what women want.

During the course, I realised that this is pure nonsense. It’s a good thing that my teachers and my creative partner helped me to notice these things when I was 22 and not much later in life.

This course was like a festive binge for me. The more you put on the table, the more it jams. It’s bad, but you’re still stuck because you’ve awakened a masochistic, self-improvement-hungry demon somewhere inside you. I signed up for Atomic Garden as soon as I decided to return to Lithuania after several years of working abroad, hoping to gain self-confidence in a new phase. But the course pushed me out of my comfort zone even more than I expected. There were days when I doubted my abilities and even my professional direction. There were weeks when it seemed impossible to juggle so many branding components and get everything done on time. There were four months when, even at night, topics were running through my mind that I never thought I would be interested in: for example, the biodiversity of sea grasses. But relief came. Somewhere at the last presentation, when the results of intensive work turned into a finished project that you could put on Kickstarter. And after a couple of months after the course, you notice how you start telling your friends “that would be a good title for a product”, suddenly they recommend you to write texts in English (although you are a visual person anyway), and after half-jokingly offering to contribute to the development of sustainable packaging, you start and do it. And you realize that you know and can do much more now than it seemed at the beginning of the course, and everything is a little less scary.

In your spare time from cooking edible masterpieces, partying, sleepless hours – expand the boundaries of chance and meet your future best friends, colleagues and ex-girlfriends. Naturally, you’ll also learn everything you need to know about advertising at the same time. And you will do it with the help of the best in the industry and with your ability to forget your ego.

I had long been dreaming of working in advertising, but I was lost, distracted and wandering around in circles. The Atomic Garden fundamentally changed the course of my life by helping me harness my scattered creativity, introducing me to the colourful world of advertising and giving me the opportunity to learn from the coolest teachers. In addition, my dream came true – after finishing the Creativity in Advertising course, my teacher Rimantas Stanevičius invited me and my creative partner to join the creative team of Milk agency.

The experience and knowledge gained at The Atomic Garden school is unique and invaluable – it helps you not to get stuck in the creative process, to believe in yourself and to always find a way out. Being a creator is not easy, but I say THANK YOU for the opportunity to engage in it every morning.

After spending some time at school, you realise that you know even less than ever. It makes you feel anxious that you weren’t previously interested in this horrible but wonderful thing called advertising. And then comes the real breakthrough. You become an avid reader, experiencer and listener of all things related to advertising. You become more open to life in general and, in the end, you start to create appalling, and maybe sometimes brilliant, advertisements yourself.

Since my school days, I have dreamed of establishing a community that would have a positive impact on the world around me. While working as a programmer in a product team, I saw that product managers are a part of the community that controls the levers of influence, which made me want to try this position myself. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to look far for opportunities, as The Atomic Garden was just recruiting for its first class of people who wanted to become Product Managers. What I expected from the course was a demystification of the producer role, heated discussions with teachers, and feedback-dominated mentoring. Expectations met. I know the difference between a Project and a Product Manager, I managed to pit teachers against each other, and I don’t even know where to put the amount of feedback I received from mentors and teachers. As someone with a fairly high quality standard, I was pleased with the competence of the teachers and the level of knowledge of their craft. The most important thing is that they did not lack empathy, which is especially important in the training of new knowledge and skills. During the course, we went through the product cycle, taking away 3 practical works that you can put in your portfolio. The teachers kept sharing different career stories with us. It was very useful in forming a multifaceted perspective of working in product companies.

I would like to say that I discovered this school unexpectedly, however, it would be more accurate to say that it was the school that discovered me. The Atomic Garden is an entirely unique phase in my life, which has thrown me onto the merry-go-round of the advertising market.

During my studies, I met my teacher Arnas Aukštikalnis, who invited me to become the art director at DDB Vilnius, and just a few months after graduation, having gained the knowledge from The Atomic Garden, I won Lithuania’s Young Cannes Lions competition and went to Cannes to compete among the world’s best young talents. I came back ranked in Top 9 and very eager to catch my own lion in advertising.

My experience in Lithuania helped me to enrol in the Master’s programme at the Miami Ad School, where I am gaining international experience and striving for new achievements.

For everyone, but certainly not for those who just want to listen passively. I have to admit, I didn’t expect that much work myself. Now you have lectures, and now, look, you’ve got an assignment to do and you’re spinning around like a bee. There were some stuck moments when you don’t know where to go next, then you call Clare, the course leader, who breaks the ice from your thoughts, leads you out of all the (not only comfort) zones and bang! A few hours later, you have 3 pages of ideas on where to go next. It wasn’t easy, but it was a good, very good process.

The brand management course was like a springboard to my dream job. From the beginning of the course, I had the goal of finding a job, so I tried to gain as much knowledge and experience as possible. And it just so happened that on the day of the presentation of diplomas I could also celebrate the first day of my dream job! I chose this course knowing exactly what I wanted to learn and gain, but it exceeded my expectations, opened up pathways and gave me confidence in both myself and my knowledge. The teachers of the course – extremely diverse and exceptional personalities, true specialists in their field – after systematizing and selecting all the necessary information, perfectly involved both in distance learning and in discussions and workshops. I feel that I have gone through brand building and repeated the entire marketing course from A to Z. I am very happy that I chose this particular course. It’s experience and knowledge that you won’t get from reading books.