Throughout university your lecturers and mentors continuously express the necessity and importance of work experience. In fact, during my 3 year Multi-media journalism degree at Bournemouth University, I was unable to graduate without at least 6 weeks work placement under my belt (2 weeks each year), but now I realise why!
Initially I thought getting someone to agree to let me tag-along with them for a week or two would be a challenge, but actually with the help and support of University staff it was fairly easy. Industries don’t mind taking on students as work experience because they gain from it as well as teaching you vital things about the real world!
Regardless of how much you think you might have learned about your chosen career from your studies you will soon learn so much more and acquire so many skills from a work placement. It wasn’t until I had completed a number of journalism internships that I figured I wasn’t suited to being a hard news journo!
I loved my course, loved writing and have always had a passion for lifestyle, culture and food writing so decided to apply for work experience as a food journalist. From this placement I gathered contacts in the PR industry and decided to do an internship with a London based PR agency. I was thrown right in at the deep end, the newbie, ringing journalists and writing press releases. It was brilliant and I wanted in!
I worked hard during the internship and everyday was a learning curve. The placement allowed me to ask questions about the PR world to professionals who were in the thick of it. From here I was able to gather good personal insight into what I could expect from the industry.
Following the internship I had a new found confidence in my writing abilities and an enthusiasm for PR so moved to Bristol in search of my dream job. Application after application, interview after interview with no joy I must admit that I briefly lost heart, but I was determined not to give in!
After a while Leapfrog PR came back to me with an opportunity to be a part of their team. I have been here a month today… and I love it! I may not be PR graduate, but I have worked hard to build up my CV and work experience portfolio to showcase my skills and look forward to developing these further with Leapfrog PR. Now to see what the future has in store!
– Jasmine