My week at the Young Journalists Academy Summer School finished on Saturday, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I had a great week, and it’s one of the best things I’ve done in a long time!
I met some esteemed journalists, from TV critic Ally Ross to sports journalist Martin Lipton to radio and TV newscaster Shaun Ley. I got some great advice from all the journalists I met and because I met journalists that covered so many different things, I was exposed to different types of journalism that I thought I wouldn’t be interested in.
I learnt a lot from all the journalists through the advice they gave me, but networking was really important during the week. Getting contact details was something that was really pushed. Getting emails and the like meant that it wasn’t just the week that was important, it was after as well.
The week hasn’t just helped me through contacts; though the tasks that I did I think my writing may have got better as well. The week helped in gaining confidence, everyone had to read out their work and that really helped. It meant that I finally actually had enough faith in my work to read it out and it meant I got some great feedback from the journalists on how I could improve it.
As well as the journalists I met and the tasks did, I went to some great places as well. Spending days at Canary Wharf was amazing, if anything just for the view. A day at Google was great as well, like the days at Reuters and News UK. Each different setting provided different inspirations, the strongest of which being the whole groups seemingly new lifelong dream to work at Google!
Talking of the rest of the group, that’s probably the best thing to come out of the week. The 30 other guys and girls that I had the privilege to share last week with are some of the nicest, most talented people that I’ve ever met. They are all such great people, and they’ll all make it big.
So, if your a young journalist struggling to find work experience then I would really recommend applying to the YJA Summer School. It helped to open some great doors for me. As well as meeting some esteemed journalists and going to some great places, you’ll meet some amazing other young people as well, it’s definitely worth it!
If your interested in finding out more, you can visit the Young Journalists Academy’s website here.
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