...ANYWAYS...
I have been keeping up to date with the majority of people from Uni and those I met/talked with of forums on facebook and some now on Twitter and it is interesting to see where different paths and fortunes have led us all, or more to the point, have led a very small number of us - the rest left struggling to battle the tide of getting any job in the journalism industry.
I am not going to allude to anyone who has not got a job where they want as I will soon be back on the preverbial scrapheap swimming with you Salmon's trying to get (and stay) upstream.
Personally, after leaving Uni it was pie-in-the-sky as I failed the last module and had to re-sit it. I used that time to re-sit some NCTJ exams which made my qualification list a little better. I then decided to pack the bags and jet off for, what I thought was, a one-month working holiday around the other side of the world.
But I am still here now, months on, with a casual journalism job at a newspaper = result! Albeit with the shear robbery of the job offer that was, then that wasn't.
Below are a few of my old friends and forumites to see where we have gone since leaving the educational institution that was.
One of my classmates uses his valuable bit of internet space to blog mostly about football, although life and journalism are in there somewhere I am sure.
Another, is games-mad and is damn good at writing reviews so uses his blog for that exact purpose - check the Michael Jackson posts!
The next was my flatmate for a year, while he may or not have a blog he does write for Suite 101 doing reviews which I believe pays a bit so you can't knock that - as they say it is a foot in the door.
This guy wanted to do online when our print and online course was merged so maybe his interests have gone elsewhere or he has another outlet for his obvious talent but his blog isn't it from May 2008 anyways.
This blog from a guy who won three Press Gazette student journalism awards hasn't been updated for a while which seems like most people whose blogs I have been able to track down so maybe I'm not doing all that bad ;) How am I supposed to know what everything is up to if they don't update their blogs which were created while at Uni?! Oh.
However, we are all put into deep shame by this guy - Dave Lee - who has put major effort in and got rewards in a job at the Beeb. He is very well known in the online blogging circles and deserves to be so. It might be his "speciality" but it's not his only focus and shows the dedication that you probably need to be successful.
Oopsy.
Not sure why I did this really. I know why I did it in terms of catching up with people online and seeing what there presence is but why post it? I guess to see in which direction most of us have gone at the plus junction and it seems that most, this might not be their view, have gone sideways or maybe diagonally upwards but quite a few backwards with no jobs.
Personally, I have gone up a bit but am soon to be dragged back when I come back home on expiry of my visa when the push begins again to claim the career ladder.
It seems only Dave Lee, who I sort of know off a forum, has gone straight upwards after finishing university.
