The life and times of a trainee journalist

I started the course about a month and a half ago and it seems the longest month and a half of my life.

After being out of education for three years, going back to college was always going to be hard, but going into an intensive journalism course was surely me with my hand over the self destruct button. However, with my aspirations of becoming a journalist in the forefront of my mind there was no other alternative.

The course itself is amazing, I am learning so much so quickly. Before I was snowed under with page budgets, corrections and author emails, now my life is filled with shorthand, articles, news stories, patch work and PA assignments.

I’m not moaning, even though it must come across that way, I really do love the course, especially when I think that in less than six months I will be a qualified journalist. It will be a good feeling to be able to introduce myself as a journalist, and then to quickly have to defend the profession I am going in to, saying I don’t want to write about sleaze or trip people up just to get a good story.

The title of the post is the life and times of a trainee journalist. To be honest the life aspect would be that my life on the whole has come to a standstill. They do warn you in the interview, but you think that they just do it to give you the worst case scenario, they aren’t it is the truth! Every waking moment (and some of my dreams) is filled with the various elements of the course, I’m starting to have dreams filled with shorthand, and this is no way good for my sanity.

I am in week eight and so far I have transformed in two ways. Firstly, I used to be a very together, organised person. However, with the course practically taking over my life and head, I am starting to slip, so much so that the other week I actually got on the wrong train to London, much to the confusion of my friend. I have bought a little whiteboard though to keep track of all my homework and help arrange my life.

Secondly, the course has given me a new found confidence. I have always been pretty confident. I have never minded talking to people, working in Superdrug from when I was 16 to 21 I had to talk to people and I loved that aspect of the job. The only hurdle I had was caring what people thought of me. I read a piece by Lorraine Candy (editor in chief of Elle) and one of the main points she said to being a journalist is to be fearless, as if you care what people think of you, you can’t walk into a room and interview Brad Pitt or Dolce and Gabbana. This course so far has helped me step tentatively over this. Ok, sometimes I do have the panic but on the whole I feel very confident asking people about stuff and not thinking that I look like an idiot.

Overall, the course is amazing and helping me achieve my dream of becoming a successful journalist. Here’s to the future... if I get through the course with my sanity that is.