Wednesday 2 September 2009

North Devon Journal Work Experience

It's somewhat hard to believe that a person you writes mildly humorous and exceedingly pointless blogs for fun has managed to land herself a place at the highly competitive local paper. I moan stupidly at things, not write sensible news reports! Nonetheless, a career somewhere in the realm of English sounds like a good plan to me and I'm never going to make any money blogging, so what is there to lose?

First things first if anyone's thinking of going into some kind of career, be it English or Neuro-Science (is that a legitimate branch of something?)then in the words of every teacher to ever grace the planet - get some work experience! It sounds like the same old same old really, and to be honest I was the same. I have to give up a week of my free time willingly to do a load of work I won't get paid for. Or just spend the week making tea. However, I can see the logic of it. Even if it does feel like you spent the week with your arm welded to the kettle you'll have been around and in the working environment, so you'll hopefully have more of an idea if this would be the job for you or whether you would rather physically weld yourself to the kettle.

Another thing I wasn't quite prepared for was the amount I'd have to do to get the place at work experience. Last time round, I went to some boring old firm, but I didn't organise a thing. This time it was all on my own back, but still I thought it'd be a case of send off my uber polished and stuffy letter and they'd welcome me in with open arms. It was not the case. After what must have been letter of the century I was asked to submit an essay on why I wanted to go into journalism, an overview of the paper (which I've never read in my life) and my improvements for it and a list as long as your arm of things I wished to gain from the experience. Since when did people take a tea lady so seriously? It's not like you can really compare the North Devon Journal to The Times. Is it? I certainly wasn't expecting such a long list, if any pre-requirements, but it seems places are very high in demand nowadays and a very serious affair. Hence the major essay writing.

However in true cartoon deer style I managed to gain a place, I'm hoping through sheer talent, but maybe sheer luck and hence the diary begins. I'm sure it'll be a valuable experience in some form, whatever ensues this week and I'm sure I'll mess something up so passing it on can invariably do no harm. . That said. If it could I'm sure I'd be the one to discover unwittingly how. .

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