Sensible Brain v Silly Brain

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brain, Brighton, degree, education, journalism, journalist, learning, MA, master's, NCTJ, Sussex, trainee, university

News writing, media law, shorthand, more news writing, academic discussion on media and power, more shorthand, radio broadcasting, meal out and pub with awesome course mates, massive sleep. Phew, just 51 more weeks of this to go until I’m a ‘master of arts’ and a qualified journalist.

I’ve recently started studying for a combined degree and diploma in multimedia journalism, which not only gets me an MA, but also an industry standard vocational qualification.

In real terms, what this equates to is an absolute poo load of work. Not only am I at uni or the training centre 9-5, four days a week, but I also have to be constantly looking for stories to report on, reporting said stories once found, preparing for weekly academic seminars, practising shorthand, reading all the news all the time and writing this bloody blog.

And we haven’t even got any exams to revise for or coursework set yet! Give it a few weeks and I’m pretty sure my free time will be about as rare and precious as a non-pixelated snap of Princess Kate’s bubba wubba wham whams.

I’m hoping that my prior experience in the working world will have adequately prepared me for the forthcoming period of intense concentration. Let’s just pray that my inherent laziness will be as easily deterred by the prospect of wasting my time and money as it has previously been by the prospect of a massive bollocking from some twat in a suit.

For me, self-determination has always been an epic inner battle. Part of my brain lucidly understands that it’s in my very best interest to knuckle down and work the hardest I can towards a bright and promising future of opportunities.

But then there’s the other part of my brain which tells me to play computer games or search YouTube for videos of midgets super-gluing raisins to a dog… and this part, for some reason, is infinitely more charming and persuasive.

This being said, I’ve been overjoyed with the amount of effort I’ve put into the course so far. It helps that all my lecturers are interesting and engaging, and that the subject matter is both diverse and fascinating. Long may these victories for sensible brain continue!

I’ll have to bring this to a close now, because I’ve just (for some inexplicable reason) eaten most of a pot of custard to myself and now feel, unsurprisingly, a bit queasy. Silly brain was plainly riled by the last paragraph and is now fighting back.

In next week’s entry I’ll be going into more depth about my individual modules.

Bleurgh.

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Nick used ‘retreat into education’. It’s super effective.

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Brighton, degree, education, journalism, journalist, MA, master's, NCTJ, Sussex, university

The gloriously green Sussex campus at Falmer

Having been out of full time education for over two years and living back home with my parents for the last one, returning to the all too cosy world of university invokes a mixture of emotions.

On the one hand, I seem to have slipped back under the warm duvet of learning as readily as on a hungover Sunday morning. On the other, I can’t help but feel peripherally unnerved by the fact that my LinkedIn profile currently reads ‘no current position’ for the first time since I created it.

I retreated into education, among other reasons, to escape the perversely intimidating world of professionalism which, as I have come to discover, my body seems to actively reject by either gaining weight faster than a pre-season sumo, or by stolidly refusing to make proper toilet.

Even so, although I am relieved to have bought myself another year before being once again forced to board the 9-6 wage slave train, there’s still a little voice in the back of my mind (a bit like Rob Bryden’s ‘man in a box’) quietly wailing ‘GET A JOB! GET A JOB! YOU’RE ALMOST 24! GET A JOB!’

It is, then, at least partially reassuring that my course in MA Multimedia Journalism has an involved vocational component. The University of Sussex provides the degree in cooperation with Brighton Journalist Works (BJW), which is a professional journalism trainee centre based at The Argus – Brighton’s local newspaper. At BJW, we study to achieve our NCTJ qualification – the nationally recognised qualification for professional journalists – which includes such practical modules as shorthand and news writing.

The upshot of this is that we leave the programme not only with an internationally recognised Master’s, but also with more bespoke, vocational skills. This is the only way I could justify returning to education, seeing as my undergraduate degree in law left me not much better off than flat on my arse just outside Exeter in a puddle of tears.

And so, I embark upon university 2.0 with an increased optimism than I’ve learned from my mistakes and have made the correct decision. This blog will hopefully give some idea of what to expect for anyone interested in entering the profession, whilst also being an outlet for the inevitable woes and wonders that are surely destined to befall.

Watch this space.