Surviving week one as a Journalism student…

My morning walk to Journalism school involves boats! 

”So I’ve been a youth worker for two years, what other challenge can I throw at myself? I know I’ll become a Journalist.” And so the rest followed…

If you’d told me two years ago, that I’d be starting a Second Masters in Magazine Journalism, I’d probably have told you to ‘piss off’ or words to similar affect, I would never have imagined that this is what I would be doing, right now at this stage in my life, but here I am after week one of training as a magazine journalist, and I absolutely love it. Hands down, this is one of the best decisions I have ever made, even better than deciding to go to India- and that’s saying something.

As someone who’s taken a bit longer to fit in than others, I’ve finally found somewhere I can really belong- it’s only taken 27 years. After week one I have new friends, a new place I can travel to without getting terribly lost and a whole new world. As cheesy as finding a ‘whole new world’ sounds.  Journalism training is fast paced, varied, practical and exciting. In the last week I’ve learned about media law, discussed the many options in the magazine industry, struggled with shorthand but then celebrated when I remembered how to write ‘the’ and learned how to use a video camera. I’ve understood the importance of curiosity, how to find new ideas, how to re-develop old ideas and what not to do when being a lone video journalist (don’t go and meet a group of armed pirates off the coast of Africa at midnight, was the example) I’ve also heard stories about getting journalistic pieces, methods to follow when reporting court cases or hostile situations, interviews that could go wrong and learned that you need to constantly think about new stories to write everyday. This is all in-between dealing with the arrival of two new kittens, who really are going to get me through this degree (but mental health & animals is something for another day)

In all honesty I was terrified before I started this degree; Have I made the right decision? What if I can’t do it? Will the people be nice? Will they like me? I asked myself. Putting my innate overthinking aside, it is only natural to feel this way, when starting a new course and a pretty drastic career change. I can now tell myself (and you) that I have definitely made the right decision, I really can do it (although the shorthand is questionable), I can’t imagine a nicer group of people to train with and they go for coffees with me so I must be a little bit alright.

I’ve decided to blog about my Journalism training, as a method of reflection for myself but also as an easy way to document how I’m doing for those who are interested. This is going to be one of the most intensive years of my life, but probably the most exciting and thought provoking…

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