Secondary Work Experience 2022
S3 pupils participated in a 'Work Experience Week' in term 4.
Miss Gibbon has shared a few photos of her Work Experience team and Hannah Salmon has written a fantastic piece below following her week with local book publisher, Pocket Mountains.
Want to learn more about Journalism? Find out more by reading these top tips from some of Scotland’s leading outdoors writers – By Hannah Salmon
Journalism is an extremely competitive field to get into and over the past six years has become increasingly popular, yet the number of people employed in this sector in the UK had increased to 73,000 by 2018, up from 65,000 a decade ago, according to the National Council for Training Journalists (NCTJ). Journalists were happier with their experience of working in the industry in 2018 than in 2012. And confidence amongst Journalists seems to be increasing. So, it’s a great time to get into journalism but where do you start?
Ways to get in-
One of the traditional routes into journalism is by going to university and getting a degree. You could do a journalism course but that’s not always the way to go. Fiona Rintoul is a writer, editor and translator, “I would counsel against media studies courses and journalism degrees. If you want to go to university, it’s better to do a good humanities degree,” she says. Getting a degree in English is always a good route to take, especially for journalism, but you could do a degree in History or a language subject, or even politics. It is possible to then do a postgraduate qualification in journalism. “I sometimes wish I had done a postgraduate qualification in journalism. I think that would have speeded things up for me, but at the time, I was scared to do another qualification and get in debt,” says Fiona. She also makes another good point, “I also wish someone had told me that while people who went to private schools were more confident than me, that didn’t mean that they were cleverer or better qualified.” If you have your own specialism or have a specific topic that you love, then why not do a degree in that? For instance, if you love science, you could do a degree in science and then move on to write about that, or if you are a creative person and love art then you could study that at university and then go on to write about that. Outdoors journalist, Dan Bailey, says: “There’s no real separation between what I do for a living (writing about hillwalking and climbing, mostly) and what I do in my spare time (hillwalking and climbing, mostly)”. So having something that you particularly enjoy, and writing about it, is always better than writing about something that you hate. -
Experience in Journalism-
Getting experience of something before you start is always a good idea. It will make it a lot easier going into a proper paid job because you will have already had a little bit of experience, so therefore it makes it easier to walk in to that first job. According to research conducted by the NCTJ in 2018, 87% of new entrants into UK journalism did a period of work experience or an internship before gaining their first paid job. “Internships can be excellent,” says former Lonely Planet writer, Patrick Kinsella, but Donald Greig, former managing director of Bradt Travel Guides, also suggests looking for shorter writing courses and entering writing competitions. “Take every opportunity you get to have your work published, even if it’s just a letter to the local paper,” he adds.
Skills a journalist may need to develop-
One invaluable piece of advice for journalists is don’t give up. As Patrick Kinsella says, “you have got to be tenacious and thick-skinned, especially at the outset”. If your work isn’t doing great then don’t just give up straight away, give yourself a chance, keep trying. Make yourself heard and don’t let people ignore you. “Question things - don’t take what you are told at face value,” says John Fergusson, former editor of BBC Radio Northern Isles. “If you are curious by nature, it is a wonderful way to earn a living – being paid to be nosy.”
What you can do now to be prepared-
The overwhelming advice from established writers is that if you want to be a journalist then you should always read. Read all the time. Read newspapers, magazines, fiction, biographies. Make sure you’re not reading the same style of text all the time, get your brain used to different things. Another excellent piece of advice is to make sure you are always writing things and get good practice. When writing, always picture the audience in your head. Think, who is this aimed at? What type of stuff will they like? And then remember that audience. Creative writing projects are helpful, they allow you to get your own ideas down on paper and let you use your imagination and get your brain working. Always be open to new things. “Immerse yourself in writing,” says guidebook writer, Peter Edwards.
There are lots of resources that can help you if you are considering whether journalism might be good for you, and there are so many great aspects to this as a career. Being a journalist is such a rewarding job, and you can get so many great things out of it. Being able to see your own work published out in the shops is just one of them. “My words and pictures get transformed into things of great beauty by the editors and production teams at the publishers,” says Peter Edwards. And for John Fergusson it’s about the access it provides: “You get to meet interesting people, and people involved in important issues.” Patrick Kinsella adds: “You can take it any direction you want to – follow your interests and passions, chase leads, unearth the most amazing stories and characters. You are limited only by your imagination and energy levels.”
The interviews in this article were conducted by Hannah as part of her research into journalism during a recent work experience week with book publisher, Pocket Mountains.
