Since I was young, I was fascinated by video editing, thanks to my mom. She would create travel videos of our family trips, carefully piecing together clips and adding effects to make them engaging. Watching her work sparked my interest in editing and storytelling, and over time, I began experimenting with editing software myself. This hobby stuck with me, and throughout my life, I worked on various video projects. One of my proudest moments was filming and editing a promotional video for my school, which was later showcased to the entire assembly. Seeing my work displayed on a big screen in front of an audience was an unforgettable experience that fueled my love for video production.

When I started my journey at the University of Colorado Boulder, I was searching for an on-campus job that aligned with my skills and interests. That’s when I came across a job listing for a video creator at the TeachEngineering department. The job focused on making educational engineering videos for K-12 students, and it immediately caught my attention. During the interview, I showcased my previous editing work, and they were impressed with my ability to create engaging and professional-quality content. Shortly after, I was hired, and I began applying my passion for video editing to a whole new purpose—teaching young students about engineering.

The Challenge of Making Educational Yet Entertaining Videos

Creating YouTube videos for kids is very different from regular video editing. It’s not just about making the videos visually appealing—they also have to be educational, engaging, and easy to understand. I quickly learned that striking the right balance between fun and informative content required creativity, patience, and a strong understanding of how young audiences learn. The process involved storyboarding each video based on a lesson plan, ensuring that the information was structured in a way that would keep students entertained while teaching them key engineering concepts.

One of the most time-consuming but rewarding aspects of this job was creating custom graphics and animations. Instead of using pre-made assets, I designed illustrations and vector elements to visually explain engineering topics. I also learned how to animate still images, bringing diagrams and concepts to life in a way that made learning more interactive. Through these videos, I aimed to tell a compelling engineering story—showcasing how engineers solve problems, design innovative solutions, and build incredible things.

Bringing Everything Together: Voiceovers, Storytelling, and Impact

Beyond editing and animating, I also did voiceovers for the videos. This was another challenge in itself—ensuring that the narration was clear, engaging, and aligned with the curriculum and script. I worked closely with the TeachEngineering team to match the visuals with the lesson plans, ensuring that each video provided a seamless learning experience. Bringing together storyboarding, animation, voiceover, and editing into one polished video required dedication and meticulous attention to detail, but the end result was always rewarding.

Over time, my videos began reaching a larger audience, and I was proud to see that they had collectively gathered over 10,000 views. Knowing that my content was helping kids learn about engineering in an engaging and accessible way was incredibly fulfilling.