Journalism vs Sociology

Oh dear- it has been an entire month since I last wrote my blog. And I have hardly any excuses. In mid February I had my NCTJ Essential Law exam and the NCTJ Reporting exam a day later. But apart from that I have frivolously wasted away my time, neglecting my poor blog for more exciting reading and writing, such as my experience of speed dating (I did it for my career and I won't hear any more about it!).

So the Essential Law exam... Honestly it has been that long that I've forgotten what happened with it! There were a couple of short answer questions which I had never known the answer to- the head of the judiciary and what "taking the silk" means. But thankfully I feel like the other questions were passable at the very least. In the week leading up to the exam my brain had no capacity for anything other than McNae and even on the day of the exam I felt like I had not done enough. But the questions fell in my favour and I feel i've done enough for the pass at the very least.

The next day was the NCTJ Reporting exam and what a kerfuffle that was! The problem was we needed computers for the exam, obviously, and apparently had not booked a free computer room. Thirty minutes after the exam was meant to start we were still trekking round the maze that is the media building at Salford University trying to find a room to do it in. Eventually we came across a room of Mac's and with one guy in the group owning one we were soon all set up. This was a 2 and a half hour exam and after 90 minutes I was finishing up, went to add a header to this (bearing in mind I don't know how to use a Mac) and the computer crashed. I had saved it after the first of two questions, but not since so I had a major, but silent, meltdown. Thankfully the technician came and saved the majority of it, missing off the last ten minutes of work. So I finished up and got out of there before anything more could go wrong!

Since then I have thrown myself into my final semester which consists of entirely Sociology modules, apart from shorthand. Unfortunately I chose to do a course including sociology on a whim because I had discovered I was good at it during A-Levels. Let me tell you, for a journalist who wants to be writing news stories and features, not essays, five years of sociology is too much! It is becoming harder and harder to switch my brain between writing stories and writing essays and the harder it becomes the less I wish to do it.

Since the exams I have learnt that I passed my NCTJ Court Reporting exam. With a low mark but a pass is still a pass and that's all that matters. It worries me slightly that the one I was confident on came back with a lower mark than I was expecting, makes me nervous about the other law exam which I am far less confident about. But only time will tell now!

As for shorthand. Well! I had originally planned to take my first exam tomorrow, the 3rd of March. Unfortunately, despite my commitment to working at home this semester, I still do not feel ready, still yet to continually complete passages at 60 words per minute. So my teacher and I have agreed to postpone my first exam by a month, by which time I am hoping to sit the 70 instead of the 60. Then the 80 in May and 100 in June. Right? Right!

Anyway, very little to report, unless you want me to rant about the unreliability of Arsenal but I'm sure you don't want to hear about that!!

Progress

As much as i would love this to be about the new Take That album, it is not. No, this is about my progress. Because journalism was such a huge learning curve for me, having written essays all my life then being told i had to throw all the rules of essay writing out of the window for articles, any progress is a huge achievement for me.

When i first started learning shorthand i thought it was going to be impossible for me to ever be able to write it fluently. But the strangest thing is happening. As i am writing this the outlines are popping up in my head, i'm hearing people talk and in my head i am writing the outline. Many would think that this was simply me being slightly mental but for the shorthand elite out there i'm sure you can understand how important this is. In the past two days i have had 6 hours of shorthand and although it has been exhausting it has also finally started to click the whole language into place.

After two and a half hours of shorthand today my brain was shutting down and my mood was darkening.So instead of forcing onwards i sat back for ten minutes, watched others in class doing dictation and writing the outlines in my head and taking note of the words i couldn't work out quickly enough. Then i decided to try the last piece of dictation. We started at 60 words per minute and ordinarily, due to lack of regular dictation, i have big gaps where i have forgotten what was said. But this time it flowed. Words which would usually catch me out just wrote themselves. I was writing the word as it was being said which is a very new experience for me. Then we tried it at 80 words per minute and again i completed the whole passage. Finally we tried it at 100 words per minute and to my complete and utter shock i completed that one without any gaps. Admittedly upon the third time of hearing the passage i am bound to remember it better but the fact that i could still be on the pace is a huge step forward for me.

Now all i need is for everyone to take down the exam passage ten minutes before me then for me to do it since it was that which cleared my head!!

Next week sees the long awaited return of the Student Direct: Salford Edition and i get to write my favourite article of the year- an opinion piece on how much i hate Valentine's Day!! This year i have even more reason than usual to hate it, other than the usual being alone and the commercialism of the whole thing. This year i have an exam on the day of the cursed "holiday" AND the day after as well. So even if i wanted to celebrate it, i couldn't possibly.

Still, I am very much looking forward to suggesting to the readers the top ten things to do on your anti-Valentine's night. Any suggestions are welcome :)

I read on Twitter today a tweet saying that in a journalism class of 40, when asked who knew nothing about what was happening Egypt, 20 students raised their hands. Half the class of future media professionals had no clue about the huge uproar against the dictatorship, about the fatalities and the constant riots. I find that absolutely shocking. I admit sometimes news stories pass me by, i have a long day at university and the last thing i want to do is trawl through several newspapers or websites to find out what i missed but i never fail to catch the BBC News at 6 or 10 and i always try to read the top stories before i go to bed. I urge anyone that is reading this and wants to be a journalist to follow suit because there is nothing more embarrassing than admitting you don't know what is going on in the world you live in.

Thanks for reading, follow me on Twitter @gemmathejourno

:)

Examitis

I haven't written anything for a few weeks because i had one exam which i went nuts revising for! One week before the exam i decided to start properly revising for it, which is my usual system and hadn't failed me up until now, but this time it was not enough. I was in the library, in the silent zone (a heavenly place where crisps are not eaten, phones are not vibrating and even the slightest noise gets scowled at!) for at least six hours every day. Hundreds of flashcards and the biggest blister i've ever had on my finger later and it was time for the exam.

A few subjects had come up while i was revising that i simply thought would not come up on the exam, one of which was what happened to treasure. I read the single page written about it and thought that it was unlikely to come up in a court reporting exam. Sadly, it did. Luckily it was only one part of the question so tried to remember what i had read, but to little avail.

That one slip up aside i feel that i did enough to pass the exam, thankfully. £44 for an exam means that i am loathe to pay for it again and spend another week of my life learning quotes from Lord Justice Diplock, McCollum, Watkins or whoever else! So hopefully when the results come in the next few weeks it will be good news!

Until then, there are more exams to revise for. The other half of the journalism law exam is on Valentine's Day and then the NCTJ Reporting exam is the following day. I have allowed myself this week off from revision, instead choosing to remind myself how to write in shorthand and making preparations for our house party.

House party of course took priority in the last few days. Friday saw the night of the party and at 10pm we were worried that were still only a handful of guests. I had been telling myself that this was normal for a house party because it is but even i was nervous at this point. Then, as usual, everyone arrived at once and by 11pm the house was bulging with people. Unfortunately 6 and half hours later the house was still bulging and i was desperately tired! By 6am everyone had eventually left, thirty minutes later i was fast asleep and by 10am i was up again taking care of my guests!

A long winded drive around Manchester and Salford, a mountain of bacon and egg sandwiches and a vat of tea later everyone was happy and leaving. Then came the clean-up operation! Having only had four hours sleep i was not in the mood for mopping up the vodka jelly that had somehow gotten everywhere!

Yesterday went in a blur of reading, napping and watching TV in bed. Eleven hours sleep later and i was fully recovered from the weeks antics. Today's plan is to practice some shorthand (now that i am in the MA's class i feel a little more dedicated to the extra hours of work a week!) and do the last of the cleaning which thankfully isn't much.

Then tomorrow, two weeks until the exam, revision must start again just as semester two classes begin, just to make it that little bit harder eh?

Post-holiday blues

Well Christmas holidays are technically over and of course that means the onset of exams and more people on Facebook during the day writing statuses asking why they didn't pay attention in lectures, if it were possible to invent the pen in Harry Potter that gives the right answer or the latest in procrastination theory.

And this time i join them. I had been looking forward to being one of the lucky few that did so much work during the term that i did not have exams but then i realised that taking NCTJ classes means at some point i would have to take NCTJ exams. I have been doing NCTJ classes for two years now and have left it to the last term to take the exams. So here i am, writing another blog entry rather than revising because it would seem that even paying for an exam and having to do so again if i fail is STILL not enough motivation for me to revise.

In the past week i have written approximately ten flashcards about Contempt of Court and i see no more flashcards in my immediate future. Why is revision so difficult to do? Once i get started i am happy to sit down and write out dozens of flashcards telling me that section 4 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 gives me a defence for writing extraneous articles as long as they are contemporaneous and in good faith. Well look at that, i learnt something! And yet, the motivation to stop watching re-runs of Friends and Come Dine With Me, get out of bed, switch Facebook off and open McNae's 'Essential Law for Journalists' is severely lacking.

I am destined to fail this exam and pay another £44 for the privilege of trying again in 3 months or feel the burn when i sit in an interview and explain that no, i did not take my NCTJ's because i was learning how to cook a rack of lamb on Masterchef!

And shorthand. That pesky little language that i am supposed to practise every day for thirty minutes else i won't be able to take my 60 words per minute in March, let alone 70 or 80. So by my estimation i have neglected to do approximately 15 hours of practise and have a class tomorrow morning in which i will be competing with the MA's who work 9-5 every day and in their lunch breaks discuss the best way to shorten sentences in order to pass the 100 exam in March!!

Okay well, i have definitely panicked myself into some sort of action now so i am definitely going to do something pro-active with my afternoon. Oh wait- Man United vs Spurs in 45 minutes? Ok, after that i'll do something. Promise. ;)

Many new experiences!

Oh dear. It's been a while hasn't it?!

In all honesty, i have been awfully busy this weekend!! I've had two assignments due in the last two days, one of which i could not begin until i had been to a gig on Friday evening.

Friday morning was possibly the most stressed i have been since the beginning of the uni year and it had nothing to do with any deadlines looming. No, this stress came from three and a half hours of getting nowhere. Friday morning saw the release of Take That's 2011 Progress tour and my aunt, her sister and me were absolutely desperate to go! Having been at the final night of the 2009 Circus tour i could not resist spending £60 and many hours on tickets. But, perhaps naively, i thought it would be easy. A couple of phone calls, perhaps logging onto a website and it would be sorted. Alas, 210 minutes later i was still ticket-less and very close to pulling my hair out. Just as i decided to give up i saw a side note from one fan on the TT fan page to try an Irish website and suddenly i was the very proud owner of three Take That tickets for June 5th 2011!!!!!!!!!!! Words simply cannot describe how happy i was and still am!!

Having had a lot of early mornings last week i was looking forward to leaving the gig at Ruby Lounge fairly early, coming home, writing a basic review to go over at the weekend then sleeping for many many hours. Unfortunately there were a lot of friends at this gig and somehow i was convinced to stay to the end and then convinced to go to Satan's Hollow afterwards. This was my first new experience because i had always steered clear of the infamous rock club, being a huge fan of Take That, it was unlikely to be my cup of tea! But, i am all for trying new things and this lead to what turned out to be a really great night!

The next day saw me doing absolutely no work and instead baking cupcakes for a Halloween party that evening. Many hours later and the day had been wasted. I was making myself Zombified because this was Halloween weekend and i had some scaring to do! Unfortunately i've never been one for acting so ended up simply grinning the whole night and scaring nobody. Still, two great nights in a row so one can't complain!

Sunday. 1,500 word assignment due Monday. A draft had been written thankfully but more work was needed. I spent the day in bed, eating hangover food but also working. Eventually it led to a final product, a waffly self-assessment and a desire to never see the words pageant, beauty or competition ever again!

Monday, the work was handed in, the Shorthand lessons had returned and predictably the one week of no practice had sent me back at least two weeks in the process! Still, i had got almost all the work necessary done in time so i was happy. All that was left to do was write a live review based on the one A4 page of notes i had made at the gig!!

Surprisingly enough i managed it! After Chinese takeaway and Paranormal Activity Monday evening i knuckled down and the live review was written. All that was left to do was sleep! And sleep i did!

Over and out!

Gemma

Biggest Interview of my Career

Twelve hours ago i woke up to a dreary, wet Manchester morning but i was not perturbed. I had a spring in my step because today was the day i got to interview the Head of BBC North, Peter Salmon.

My mood was dampened slightly by a very poor mark in a Music Journalism album review but i was not going to let anything get me down. Even the persistence of the rain as i stepped outside an hour later. Within minutes my feet were soaked and i discovered that my boots leaked. And yet, there was still a smile on my face.

By this point i was getting a little nervous and when i'm nervous i go one of two ways- i either go much louder to over-compensate or i shrink into myself. Today i chose hiding away as i shook the hand of the university Press Officer, a man from the BBC and many others who i failed to catch the name of.

Then Peter Salmon walked in and i didn't know what to do. Editor Emily had just briefly left the room and i had sat at a table. I watched as he was introduced to the others in the room and i felt completely out of place. I just stayed back and hoped nobody noticed i was invading on their very grown-up meeting!

Emily returned, we were introduced to Peter and then taken upstairs to where fellow students had set up equipment. We sat in the background and took notes while Peter was filmed for the university and a student project for twenty minutes then it was our turn.

Emily had originally said that i would ask most of the questions but we had sat down, turned on our dictaphones and then i had completely forgotten everything i wanted to ask! So Emily very deftly too control of the situation. Unfortunately we only had five minutes so Emily asked a few questions, i got one very important question in and then that was it. Peter Salmon was swept away to the next important meeting and we were left in someone's office in the wake.

I then came into my element, got chatting to the other students and recognised a few from my features class. I even managed to get them to promise to write a few features for me, they were very impressed that i was Features Editor so i felt much better about myself by the time i left the room!

Once again i have failed to do any Shorthand. Must rectify that now!

Over and out!

Gemma

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