Media City UK visit

Pods, hot rooms, preparation areas, hero suites and Christie tiles. It sounds like the blue print for a new spaceship being launched but no, this is what is making it’s way to the students of the University of Salford in September 2011.

Unfortunately for me I have just completed my three years of study here but it didn’t stop me from having a little poke around the rapidly finalising MediaCityUK on Thursday.

Until now the MediaCityUK was an area kind of near me that I’d been hearing about for three years, the main reason I ever chose to come to Salford to study and the thing that lecturers were always saying would be our big opportunity. It had never solidified itself in my mind that this really was going to be a hub of media creativity right on my doorstep.

But a ten minute taxi ride later I was starting to see just how within my grasp this really was. With four other Student Reps, two members of staff and the Vice President for the schools affected on board (pictured above, picture 2), we went on a tour of the University of Salford floors in a bid to get a better idea of the transformation of the Salford Quays taking place.

Taking us round were Andrew Cooper, Academic Director of MediaCityUK, Callum Macdonald, Site Manager for Overbury and newly appointed Operations Director for MediaCity Nick Horan.

Overbury are the refurbishment specialists in charge of making Andrew Cooper’s dream a reality. They were given the shell of the building, and an impressive shell it is too (pictured above, picture 4), and are basically interior designers en masse, boasting sites such as Canary Wharf before winning the bid for this project. With 236 builders working on our four floors alone, it’s easy to see how the building site we visited will be completed in 11 weeks ready for the handover on August 29th.

As we walked round each floor the areas in front of us were brought to life with a little imagination (which shouldn’t be hard with so much creativity flowing all around). For me personally I was obviously most interested in finding the journalism suites and I was not disappointed.

For those of you not familiar with the University of Salford I’m going to give you a little bit of background at this stage so that it puts the MediaCityUK area into perspective for you. The current building that houses the journalism courses used to be a factory several decades ago.

The most infamous thing about the Adelphi building is that it is a maze. For my first year of university I would walk through a door expecting to know where I was and find myself in an entirely different section of the building, I could never find the canteen two days in a row and the school office was an absolute mystery to me. After three years I can still be led to a brand new room that I never knew existed and not be able to find it a few hours later. For the journalism rooms you had to find your way to the basement. I know it sounds easy, just keep going down, but the basement is blocked off into various sections. The costume department for the performing arts students is apparently down there as well but being an old factory all the sections of the basement cannot be connected so they could be next to each other but you’d still have to go all the way upstairs and find a new set of stairs to lead you down there. And of course in the basement there is no natural light.

Contrast this to what I am about to tell you and you can understand why exactly I am awed by MediaCityUK to this extent. On the third floor, in a corner overlooking the MediaCity Studios there is a News Preparation Area, fully equipped newsroom which can connect to the TV and radio rooms in the other floors, a presentation space with adjoining control room with specially made state-of-the-art equipment that wouldn’t be out of place in the BBC and Sky studios and a huge newsroom, the biggest room on the floor (pictured above, picture 1). All of these have floor to ceiling windows, air conditioning and every software you could possibly want as a trainee journalist.

But don’t worry, if journalism isn’t your cup of tea the other floors have something for everyone, after all the four floors are going to be home to 39 Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses in a few short months. The third floor is also home to the video editing suites, the ground floor has three black-walled studios which can be used for vocal recordings, filming, theatre productions and so much more.

By the entrance to this magnificent building is one of the most exciting aspects of the move- the Egg. The Egg is an oval stage in the centre of the ground floor, unmissable and therefore the perfect place for displays and performances. What makes it so exciting is that a wall can be built in the centre of this zone to make a room used for seminars or two stage areas. It is the wall that is most interesting because it is built out of Christie tiles, I fairly new invention that act as a projection screen. Films, Twitter feeds and much more can be projected onto the whole wall or onto one tile of it, making it part of the enticing technological developments within the complex.

And this development is not all about the students either. The staff at the University will benefit from magnificent views over the Quays, the 9,000 seating piazza and all the attractions of the area (pictured above, picture 3) as well as a transformation of the way they can work. Floors two and three are open plan areas, with pods for semi-private conversations and hot rooms for entirely private discussions.

Andrew Cooper said that the floors were designed as such because he wants “everyone, including staff, to feel they can move freely” and it certainly does give that impression. On the third floor there is a huge open space with the above ITV floors looking into it. This, Andrew Cooper says, is to help staff and students alike to “use this building as much as possible to display the talents” and who wouldn’t want to with such an important audience on their doorstep?

The original statement about the partnership between the University of Salford and the MediaCityUK was: “It will be an extension of the university’s main campus, acting both as a showcase for cutting-edge projects and exhibitions, and a hub for research and teaching activities.” and it certainly seems to have delivered so far.

Such a good investment, I am sorely tempted to return to education just for the perks of the building which, just with those four floors, is bigger than any other building on the Salford University campus. Watch this space!

Opportunity Knocks

Okay so I know I said it would be a few days until I wrote again but my life is VERY hectic at the moment so once again my apologies!

In the time I have been away from my blogging duties I have had several journalism opportunities practically land at my feet. My mother always used to say to me "Jobs don't just come knocking on your door" but the past week would beg to differ I would say!

The final two days of work experience were really good. I feel like the week really gave me some insight into my future and I definitely liked what I saw! I got to finish up early on the Friday because there was another work experience guy so there weren't enough press releases to go around! Chris, the man who gave me the opportunity in the first place, was really kind when he left, said it had been nice working with me and saying I should email him the week after to find out if any of my byline requests on lead stories were granted.

Well I emailed him a few days ago and hey presto! I have a couple of lead stories so he is sending me a copy of last week's paper and I will have some actual proper newspaper clippings! Not to say that the uni paper isn't real, it just doesn't have a big readership like the Sale and Altrincham Messenger!

So that was one opportunity knocking- the opportunity to improve my portfolio, which I also need to sort out with Steve because that is one component of my NCTJ Diploma which I have completely ignored! It will also improve my CV. Since graduation is looming "It'll look good on your CV" seems to be everyone's favourite phrase! Maybe they should have started using it at the beginning of university because then our CV's would be outstanding! Although mine doesn't look too shabby I reckon!

Another opportunity that came knocking was in the form of an email from a young woman inviting me to blog on a Manchester based student blog, much like the unitown website opportunity in the summer. Apparently my blog gets read by more than just my most loyal friends on Facebook as they read this and asked if i'd like to write for them. It's always a nice boost when someone thinks my writing is good enough for their own project. I know how protective I would be if I were setting up a multi-writer blog so i'm touched.

The third opportunity was one I had completely forgotten i'd applied for in all honesty! On one of my days of panic where I thought I wans't doing enough to realise my dream I applied for work experience at ITV, not really expecting to hear anything back because TV isn't what I want to do. However, there were chances to do writing behind the scenes so I applied with no expectations. That was probably six weeks ago and yesterday, in the same batch of emails as the blog opportunity, was one from ITV saying I had got through to the second stage of the work experience selection process.

Now it is yet more waiting, they have workshops in June in Leeds, Manchester and London and in the first week of June I will find out if I have a place. The best thing about this is, my friend Hayley from my course also applied and she also got through! So June could be a very busy but very exciting month!!

The final opportunity is obviously the best. Although something which I thought inevitable (not being big-headed but I did fulfill all application criteria), it has been confirmed- I have an interview for Editor of the uni newspaper on May 6th. The interview includes a 45 minute written test which seems to alarm people when I tell them but that's the part of the interview I know I can do! If i've learnt nothing else about myself in the past three years, i've learnt that I CAN WRITE!

I always used to think I had no talent so now I know that I do i'm hopefully never going to doubt it again! My worry is in the interview. I tend to say the wrong thing, can't describe what I mean, and get a bit flustered. Hopefully i'll be calm because this is something I do genuinely believe I can do, and can do well! But I know how nervous I get before interviews so i'm not certain!

One other thing, which is much less good news... I didn't win Student Journalist of the Year. I was disappointed because I did feel like I had a good chance this year but I did get awarded Gold colours for my dedication to the paper so I can't complain too much :D

The next few weeks will be dedicated to writing my final two assignments of my degree and revising for my final degree exam, as well as the rest of my NCTJ exams. So now I have a reason for not blogging for a few weeks!!

Over and out!

Day One of the rest of my life!

Hello,

Technically this is not the first day of the rest of my life because i have been studying Journalism and Sociology (strange mix i know, i'll get onto it later) at the University of Salford for two years now and started my third year four weeks ago.

But in many ways this is the first day of the rest of my life because this blog will be updated daily, no matter what i have been doing. I have found in the last four weeks that i have done something towards becoming a journalist every single day and so it seemed an appropriate time to start a blog all about my journey along the road towards becoming a journalist.

So, as the title suggests, many people wonder why i have chosen a career that is often low-paid, gets little recognition unless you are either extremely talented or extremely opinionated and is one of the most hated professions in modern times. Well, unfortunately i cannot say that i am extremely talented; talent comes with experience and i have little in real terms, nor am i extremely opinionated. Opinionated yes, but not extremely. Not yet anyway!

The answer is simple- when other teenagers were outside riding bikes around the local park and playing kiss chase (i only played once and knocked my two front teeth right out, never again!), i was sat indoors creating a newspaper all about 'So Little Time'- Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson's attempt at teen drama before they became real teenagers and truly discovered the opposite sex! I have always loved to write. Of course, at the age of 13 i was adamant that i would write the next Harry Potter and would be insanely rich by the age of 21. I am 21 now and still waiting for the insane richness to kick in! I had a momentary lapse of judgement at 14 when i decided i wanted to be an air stewardess but it was short-lived when i was told i would have to study French and German at GCSE level. Never going to happen.

So i reverted back to my roots of writing. And it hasn't really stopped since. Reading and writing has been my escape from an otherwise mundane life so when the careers advisor asked me what i wanted to do with my life the obvious answer was writing. She soon set me straight about my chances of writing a best-selling novel before leaving school but lead me to journalism courses.

I chose Salford University because it offered Shorthand as part of the course (of course i didn't realise that was only if i did Journalism as a straight course) and the rest, as they say, is history! I chose Sociology because i had done at A-Level- there were no other viable options for me to pick in all honesty- and discovered i was actually quite good at it. So i figured why not continue being good at it? Turns out sociologists blame most of society's problems on media saturation and sensationalism, hence the clashing course but i have not been perturbed and stuck with it.

And so we come to now. I am in my third year. I have studied reviewing, public relations, feature writing, news writing, music journalism and journalism in the context of everyday life. I am also in the process of learning everything i need to know to take my NCTJ's (National Council for the Training of Journalists exam), including a whole new language in Shorthand. I am Features Editor of the university paper- Student Direct: Salford Edition- for the second year running, i contribute regularly to www.unitown.co.uk and now i have this blog, as well as my modules for my final year.

But it keeps me busy, on my toes and prepares me for the real-life, day-to-day schedule of a journalist so i am very happy. There isn't a day goes by where i don't do something towards being a journalist so everyday i will tell you what i did that day. You'd be surprised how much work goes into saying how you feel about something!!

Over and out for now!!

Gemma