I became a trainee journalist at the start of September studying at the bottom of the country in a little Cornish town called Pool at Cornwall College.

I am on a post graduate journalism course called an NCTJ. It is just 18 weeks long and the time is going so fast I feel as if I will be finished before I know it.

It was quite exciting going back to studying again, especially as there is a specific aim at the end of it all. I know that I want to be a journalist and by doing this course I will be prepared for what the job has to offer.

There are only 7 people on the course including me and we go to college every week day from 9 to 4.30 and on a Friday we all go our separate ways to newspapers to have a day per week in a working newsroom.

Work experience on Friday’s is great. It is brilliant to go regularly as you get used to working in a busy news room. I go to the Falmouth packet. So far we have gone out and conducted a vox pop where we asked people’s opinions on the closure of the post offices. Most people were prepared to speak to us but some treated us as if we were asking them for money and just ran away. Other people refused to have their photo taken as they did not want their opinion matched with their face!

I have also been out and reported on the Tall Ships in Falmouth. That was really fun as were out of the office all day and we got to go on the ships and talk to people enjoying themselves. I have also reported on a story where by I did all the research and took my own photos. It was quite nice to see that in print as I knew that I had put a lot of effort in.

Otherwise I conduct interviews on the phone. James, who is also from the course, goes there on a Friday too and we have been given a student magazine to put together. It is really exciting to choose what we want to put in it and write all our own material. I rang up the founder of gap year.com the other day to get some information on gap years and he was such a nice guy. The interview went so well and it is so nice when that happens as you get a real buzz afterwards. I have also had one interview where it did not go well at all as I ran out of questions too quickly and I just hadn’t thought about it enough.

As for the course itself it is brilliant. It teaches me every thing which I need to know to be a journalist. I am learning the law of journalism and what I can/cannot report on in court. I have to say law is not my strong point but it is really important as if you print something you are not meant to you can be in contempt of court and get a huge fine. We are also learning about public affairs so we are learning how the education sector is run for example. It may not sound particularly interesting but our teacher is really funny and makes even council matters sound like a barrel of laughs.

We are also learning shorthand! In just 18 weeks we need to be writing at 100wpm which is pretty tough! It is like learning a whole new language. We have been through the whole course book of Teeline shorthand in just 5 weeks. When I look at a page of shorthand which I have written I am quite amazing that I can actually read it. I am not quite at 100wpm yet though! Currently stands at 50 which is far too slow for spoken speech.

Finally we are of course learning how to write good intros, write quotes, how to sub, what’s newsworthy and other journalism practices. Our course leader, Mark, has a story for every thing which has provided us with much amusement. It makes me look forward to being a fully qualified journalist.