“Never again!!” I screamed as I threw my cap up in the air when I graduated with my bachelors degree in 2010. I loved the university experience – it was where I got my first taste of radio. Although, having studied an academic subject, I found it difficult to relate the theories I was learning to real life situations. Never say never though; after all, my high school motto was “Learning for Life”. I’ve found that to be true, especially now I’m a student again, this time studying for a masters degree.

After graduating first time around I worked for two years in the media industry. It was a big decision for me to go back to studying again; revising and completing assignments. I’ve took to it like a duck to water though – literally, considering all the rain we’ve had in North-West recently! I’m now at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) training to become a broadcast journalist. What’s great about the course is that it’s practical, so we learn by doing the work ourselves… Have camera and radio OB kit will travel!

Digital journalism is a key area that’s being used prevalently by news outlets. It’s not completely new to me; I’ve been using social media to enhance the content of my radio shows for years. I’ll always try out interesting new platforms but the three I use frequently are probably the most common: Facebook, Twitter and this blog.

When I first looked into becoming a journalist, I was told that it would be a good idea to have an online presence, which is why I started blogging. This will still be my personal blog, written in an narrative style rather than using journalistic convention. It’s a way to record my thoughts and maybe even write something that you’ll find interesting. Not much will change here; I aim to update it at least once a month by publishing a new post.

Then there’s my journalism blog, about the ‘beat’ that I’ve been assigned on science and technology. Rather than personal thoughts, I post there weekly about that area of news. I’m now also one of the contributors on the UK Journalism Review website,  where I comment on industry specific news.  There’s exciting times ahead, all of which involve lots of writing – especially blogging. The letters are already starting to wear off my keyboard. I will judge how successful this year has been by how visible they are at the end!