Keeping up to speed...

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I have aspirations to go into a journalism career.

And as I have also explained previously, an arts degree is simply not enough (certainly in my experience) if you want to walk into a newspaper (or magazine, radio, TV, etc) office straight after graduation.

It's now over six months since that sunny afternoon in Reading and following months of hard work and acquiring expert knowledge of the catering industry, my path is now a lot more focussed en route to becoming a journalist.

I mentioned briefly in my previous post that I was just about start on a sports journalism course in Bournemouth, and I'm now a week and a bit into it.

It's certainly all very interesting and it is times like these when perhaps you don't realise how complex the job is.

I'm finding that although university equips you with certain skills, like paraphrasing pieces of text or ensuring your time management skills are, well, on time, it doesn't really prepare you for any specific profession.

Now I appreciate that in one way that is a good thing, and it allows you to keep your options open, and I also did not expect my degree to do that.

However, some of the things that I am now learning, such as shorthand and media law, are the real nitty-gritty aspects to the job which are all ignored.

And it is these areas which are arguably the most important.

It's not the fault of universities, it is a fault that exists in the system itself.

I'm not going to get into a debate about how useful uni is, and I am not for one moment complaining about it.

I had what will probably be the best four years of my life there and I wouldn't change it for the world.

All I am saying is that if you think you will walk into a job straight after it and believe the rest will take care of itself then I'm afraid you're in for a real shock.

Right, back to the journalism course.

I am on an intensive, six month course, which is based in the Daily Echo offices in Bournemouth.

Being based in and amongst the base of a newspaper is certainly far more inspiring I imagine than stuck in a room in the middle of nowhere.

You really get the buzz of the newsroom every time you walk through it.

The course is run by 'Up to Speed' training organisation, which does exactly as its name suggests.

So far we have covered quite a bit of material, ranging from a talk about the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to knowing all about the powers the role of the monarchy in today's society.

So as I said it's fascinating stuff (well most of it, really) and I look forward to putting it all into practice one day.

Today we went out into the town to try and find some potential sources for stories.

Being a Monday morning there wasn't too much around, apart from some kids who I reckon should have been in school, some rather empty buses going along, and the fact that the Christmas lights still hadn't been taken down yet - a criminal offence seeing as we are already halfway through January!

Nothing overly exciting then but hey, you're not always going to have fascinating, mind boggling things to investigate!

That's it for now, if you have any comments or suggestions about my blog, then feel free to provide feedback as it is greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading!