Published: July 18, 2018
Journalism courses at the University of Sunderland pride themselves on creating future journalists, PR professionals and a range of other media workers. They make this achievable in a variety of ways, but most importantly, you are a journalist throughout your course and you must always think like a journalist. Here are just a few ways that the courses train you to be the best in the world of media…
The Media Hub
This is the University’s digital publishing and broadcasting space which can be used by all journalism students to publish their work and experiment with a variety of platforms. It is the home of the award-winning Spark radio and our online websites Fashion North, Northern Lights, SR News and SportsByte which cover a wide range of topics. The teams of students running each platform aim to create new and interesting content for those living in Tyne and Wear. The design of the room was inspired by the offices of Google, Netflix and Amazon and has a cloud-filled skyline and a shed for a quiet area to make calls or have meetings. The Media Hub has a friendly atmosphere and gives you a chance to work in a newsroom environment and therefore prepares you for being a professional someday.
Experience
While the Media Hub gives you experience, it’s important to get your name out there and find some work experience to add to your CV. In your final year, you must go on a placement of at least 10 days on a publication that relates to your course to put what you’ve learned into practice. Not only will this allow organisations to know your face and how well you can work in the industry, it gives you a chance to learn more about your future career.
Marked work
From the start to the end of the course, your assignments and exams are always testing your journalistic skills. They train you to become the best journalist you can be. While in your first year you may be nervous to contact people and avoid picking up the phone, you’ll soon realise that emails get lost and you need sources urgently so your confidence will keep rising every time you make that important phone call or meet with a source face-to-face. Not only that, but you earn vital skills in photography, video-journalism, reporting, shorthand, and writing both online and print news. But, the modules are constantly changing. The world of news has to keep adapting to the changes in technology and so the likes of podcasts are becoming more admirable as a skill. Therefore, we must always adapt our work to portray the most modern skills.
Understanding the law and the world around you
For any journalism student to graduate, they must have learned and been tested on the law of media and public affairs. You’ve got to know the do’s and don’ts of journalism to avoid breaking any laws or creating ethical issues. Therefore, you should always look back at your work and consider all of the things you have learned. While some students may not find this as interesting as other modules, it is so important.
NCTJ
While working to receive a degree in Journalism at university, you can also work towards achieving a Diploma in Journalism from the National Council for the Training of Journalists. All of our Journalism courses at the University are NCTJ accredited and we are so proud of this. Having this extra boost on your CV can really help future employability and the modules we learn relate to the NCTJ exams and therefore it isn’t too difficult to sit both university and NCTJ exams simultaneously.
The Journalism courses at our University are so beneficial and have a wide range of success stories of so many graduates working in media. I personally am so proud to be a Fashion Journalism student at the University of Sunderland for all of these reasons and I look forward to finding the right work placement for me as I move into my final year of the course and begin thinking about my final portfolio of work.
Topic: Advice and tips, Course, Student lifestyle