A big dilemma when deciding to throw your hard earned money at someone in exchange for knowledge: am I ready for this? Will I get enough out of it to justify the cost? Will I get eaten alive? I’m scared. Hold me. I don’t want anything to do with any of it. Go away.

Or something like that. It’s a realistic dilemma to have. As a video editor or motion graphics artist, you wouldn’t go to an advanced PHP conference or Accountantpalooza (if there is such a thing…and if there isn’t, there should be.) And you wouldn’t pay to attend a weekend of advanced level hands-on video production classes if you’ve never touched a camera before.

But chances are if you’ve made it this far and you read industry blogs like this one, you’re exactly the kind of person that would benefit from attending video production or post-production workshops. Whether you’re still in college, never went to college, you’re in your first video gig, or searching for that first job, you’ll get something out of a week or weekend of video production classes.

Most conferences are built with a wide demographic in mind — which makes sense, because everyone is so different in our industry. So don’t fret that you’ll be the dumb kid in the back of the room if you feel a little green. Even if a few concepts do go over your head, at least you’ll know what you’re interested in researching further. And being surrounded by a bunch of your peers, you’ll probably discover that you’re less inexperienced than you thought. There’s no need to feel intimidated, especially in a learning environment.

The Southeast Creative Summit is coming up on October 25-27 in Atlanta and it’ll be a great conference for the less experienced. The focus is less on specific tools, and more on what to do with the tools. Learn more about the art and craft and apply that to all the technical junk you have yet to learn. You can get about $150 off with the code trackmatte2013.

I was going to write a post called “Am I TOO experienced for educational workshops?” But duh, no, you aren’t. There’s always something new to learn about or get better at, and as soon as you start thinking you’re too knowledgeable to possibly learn anything else, you should probably retire or move onto a new career. Maybe something in event planning, adding “–palooza” to words.