Thursday 1 May 2014

End of an era.

The time has now arrived. I am in the final furlong of my life as a student, and the time will soon be upon me to go into the big, wide world and actually go work.

The thought of it terrifies me.

But it's a challenge I'm looking forward to, and I know I will be leaving Southampton Solent University with the best possible knowledge of everything I need to give me a helping hand. I've learnt various different skills and lessons over the last two and a half years - I'm no longer the same person as the 19-year old who walked into halls, lacking in self-confidence. Now, I am a better and wiser person. Uni has made me far more confident in not only myself, but around other people. I now love to meet new people so instead of shying away in a corner and hiding, I'm more than happy to stick my hand out and say "nice to meet you!". I hated calling anyone but now, I have no qualms in picking up my phone.

I've learnt a lot and I believe becoming editor of our course website is a valuable experience. I can say to future employers that I was in charge of a website, deciding which content to publish and try make better. I learnt about teamwork, and how working closely with your fellow colleagues is the best way to go forward. It was very hard work, with trying to organise which reporters produce which stories and making sure they are the best they can be. It was stressful to organise even between the editorial team who was sub-editing which story. But out in the big, wide world, we are expected to deal with these pressures from the off and being editor on two occasions I believe will definitely help me cope a lot better than before. The use of social media to promote our stories was a great way of getting our content out there, and one which we did improve after our first news-day outing. Things such as the simple use of a whiteboard to organise our stories was a key part of making our team succeed as well as it did, and I am proud of what we did. With communication and teamwork, it will help you massively.

I'm closing one door of my life and leaving a city which I've called home for nearly three years, but with that new challenges and other doors will open. It's scary and there'll be times I'll yearn to be a student once more but you know what... It's time to start a new chapter.

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Second outing as an editor

The day came that once again, I was the editor of our course website: www.solentjournalism.co.uk. The last time out as an editor, I had been relatively pleased with how the day had gone so was hoping that it would be the same once again.

Or maybe not.

These last two weeks have been stressful and a lot more demanding than last time, but it all makes for good experience. Despite the last news-day being a lot busier in terms of stories being received, my fellow editors and I found this time a lot harder with attempting to get people to submit stories.

The prep day on the 26th of February proven to be the start of some issues; first of all, there was a distinct lack of three-years, but this is completely understandable - we after all have final major projects to complete, along with other big assessment before the end of our University careers. However, this was the case for the second-years, with hardly turning up. The only year for the majority to appear were the first-years and they were indeed the ones to show the most enthusiasm in wanting to write news stories. That is something that seems to be lacking, particularly in the second-year. A couple of our lecturers even had to get sarcastic with the second-years just to get a couple to volunteer to help with a story - they shouldn't have to be doing that.

One first-year came up with a brilliant story - after Team GB's success in the Sochi Winter Olympics, the dry ski slope in Southampton has received a lot more business since, particularly with snowboarder and Olympian Billy Morgan hailing from Southampton. It made way for potential for not only a cracking piece of copy, but also great multimedia content. We came up with the idea of perhaps getting someone who has never snowboarded before to give it a go, have a GoPro strapped to them and get good interviews. At first, us editors only wanted two second-years to give our first-year a hand - only for some to whine childishly at not being assigned the story. We relented, and ended up giving four second-years the story, giving them great ideas and expecting this to turn out to be one cracking news story.

Alas, how wrong were we? We turned up on the news-day (5th of March) and found not one second-year (despite four of them on the case) had done any  multimedia content. We weren't surprised, but it was hugely frustrating and disappointing; the first-year had done her part but sadly, the more experienced second-years weren't willing to do their's.

It was very much the story of the news-day, with a lack of stories and people turning up, we as editors could only do what we could do. Admittedly, some second-years did go and get good audio vox-bops but the lack of those turning up was concerning.

As an editorial team, I feel we all worked well as a team, with four of us working together beforehand. We all communicated well once again and I can go away happy with our efforts to create good content for the website. One hiccup was the lack of one of our team on the prep news-day, only turning up two hours after we had been due in University for an editorial meeting. Nevertheless, this was one small blip on what was overall a good effort from all of us.

My advice to the next team? Work hard and communicate well as a team - it'll pay off.

Tuesday 28 January 2014

Record signing? No Mata...

Six minutes was all it took for Juan Mata to make an impact with his new club, a cross-field pass perfectly picking out Patrice Evra and a matter of seconds later, the net was rippling. If this is a sign of things to come, then United fans better get excited.

Sealed with club record £37.1m from rivals Chelsea, Mata has arrived with arguably a massive weight on his shoulders and the hopes of Manchester United fans across the globe that he can turn their fortunes around. But no pressure was evident, as Mata would float around the pitch, popping up everywhere. Within minutes he was pinging passes across the field, much back to the days when he was a regular in the Chelsea XI. I still find it astonishing that Chelsea and Mourinho were willing to leave Mata out of the starting line-up and then go on to sell him, but it has worked fantastically in United's favour.

Not one player can turn a club's season around and for Moyes and his players, there is plenty of work to do. But United can make a good stab of it, particularly if strikers Wayne Rooney and Robin van Persie stay fit; the latter getting on the score-sheet after only six minutes into his return tonight. At times against a plucky Cardiff side, led by former United legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, they would concede possession easily and were chasing the game. I am yet to be really convince by Tom Cleverley, Phil Jones and Chris Smalling - are they really the future of the English side? Manchester United did play okay - comfortable more than anything - but if they lose possession against a better side in the future, they will be punished. They certainly need to improve.

But for now, Mata's arrival has injected a much-needed buzz to Old Trafford. It's a big signal of intent from David Moyes, to say to their rivals 'listen, don't forget about us.' Mata will go on to be a Manchester United great, his creativity and vision is what they need in what is a side this campaign that is lacking any real conviction. It may be too late to save their season and a Champions League spot now, but the potential is there for beyond - and all that remains to be seen is whether Chelsea have made a big mistake letting their two-time Player of the Year slip from their grasp.