Teeside Uni write up

In the past month I visited Teeside Uni, where I attended many talks about journalism and all career paths involving media.
The first talk was presented by an employee of Sports Bible, who introduced us to his career path, where he started, how he started and how he got into it. This included getting his degree at Uni, and where it led him. As well as this, we were given a talk by a man who was also working in the world of sports journalism, working freelance. As well as the person who spoke to us from Sport Bible, he spoke to us about his journey, how he got into working freelance, how he finds work every week and his future plans, whether that be to continue freelance work, or if he plans on getting into industry work, of example, working in an office or for an organisation. From this talk in particular, I learned that Journalism is as exciting as I hoped to be and I gathered a large understanding of how to get there, including getting a degree and how to start off, for example, working freelance and aiming to gather contacts and get your name out. We talked with another journalist, who had worked on various TV projects, including working on oil rigs and being lost at sea. He mentioned that there were exiting attributes to his job, as well as the times being flexible, which was necessary due to his family life.
As well as the sports journalism course was shown to be for younger people rather than that of older, this is due to the amount of social media and online presence needed for the role.
To begin the visit though our personal details were recorded before the first talk began. These included an email address, names, dates of birth and a  phone number.
This was done to help further our knowledge on the university and the courses they offer, ultimately deciding if a course at the university is something that we would consider as a future.
 A brief tour of the university was shown and certain key members if staff were introduced, for example former journalists and media culture representatives.
Of these lecturers one was a possible victim of Raoul Moat, she told the story of how she was invited to the crime scene and all the insurances that had to be made, as well as the safety measures that had to be taken.
The picture above shows the main and only campus of the university. This is the campus that we visited and it is located in Middlesbrough.
I learned many things from this experience, such as: a good way to begin a career in sports journalism is to begin freelance, as well as this, the hours that a journalist works are very flexible and reliable, however this can quickly change if a large news story appears.
This visit helped me decide that journalism was the perfect choice for me, and gave me a greater understanding on the subject as a whole.