I'm Back....Again

Hello Everyone!

It's been a while since I posted on here, too long in fact. Life has kind of got in the way a bit. By that I mean that I've been kept busy with work, driving around and starting uni (and the mountains of work that has come along with it). However, as I am doing a journalism degree you'd think this blog would be blossoming with regular posts.... so this is what I am pledging to do from now.

I love writing and blogging is an amazing way to showcase your work, to express yourself. You can post what you like, and apparently when you like in my case ;) aha This blog will be a way for me to write about whatever I'm feeling like at the time, I find it too hard to focus on just one subject to blog about. Life is too great to choose just one thing as a constant theme.

Anyway, as usual I have rambled on, but I just wanted to put out there that I will be posting more frequently this year. 2015 will be an awesome year, just wait to see how it all unfolds. :D

Lots of Love, x

University Offers

Hello Everyone!

As of today, Friday 14^th February 2014 (also known as Valentine’s Day), I have received all 3 offers from the universities I have applied for. They are all conditional offers, in the hope that I achieve the grades to go in September, which is what I am aiming for.

Although I am 18, which is the right age to go to uni in the UK, I still feel so young- like I shouldn’t be going for interviews, applying for student finance or worrying about money. I should be having fun being young, spending time with friends- but in reality I will still be doing all of this at university, if not having a great time then I will have made lots of new friends who are interested in the same things I am. Whilst writing this I am getting super excited for September to come, not only will I have just started a degree, but I will either be, or nearly be 19 (Woah! Getting old, aha :P).

The 3 courses I have applied to do are;

* Magazine Journalism and Feature Writing- Southampton Solent University

* Multimedia Journalism- Southampton Solent University

* Journalism- Portsmouth University

3 very different courses in the subject of journalism, but from all I anticipate to gain the same if not similar skills of getting me closer to my ambition of becoming a magazine journalist or designing magazine layouts.

As you can possibly tell (if you know Hampshire, or have heard of it) that the two universities are both near each other (about 30 mins drive between the 2) which suggests that I don’t want to move away from home. This is partly true! Instead I will commute daily to and from my lectures. I see it as a blessing that the course I REALLY want to do (Magazine Journalism and Feature Writing) is so close to where I live! :D It just means the whole 3 years of uni will work out cheaper for me. For the tuition fees alone, after the degree I will be in £27,000 in debt- however, this is the cheapest loan you will ever pay back. My dad has said to me ‘Just think of it as a tax, paying a small amount back each month, ONLY when you earn over £21,000’- what a wise dad I have!

For me now it is a case of replying to these offers, selecting my ‘firm choice’ and my ‘insurance choice’, after that I have to wait for August to come round and open that envelope which will contain my fate (Ooo, scary!)

Congratulations if many of you, like me, have received all your offers! And I suppose it’s going to be a shared ‘Good Luck’ in your exams to everyone in this situation.

My future decided

Hello Everyone!

A few blog posts ago I talked about attending Southampton Solent University's open day, it's now been 2 weeks since I went along with my dad and I thought I'd write about how much I loved it!! 
Although I don't live too far from Southampton (about 30-40 mins), it was still an early start, making sure we get there on time for the first presentation which was at 10am. Once we got to Southampton it took us a while to find a place to park as the University only has a staff car park, when we did it was in the town centre (not too far from Solent Uni) and because of this it cost £10 to park for only 5 hours! :O Oh yes to top off the most expensive start to a day ever, on the way my dad managed to very cleverly get caught by a speed camera doing 36mph in a 30mph zone! Tut Tut!
The first presentation was for the Magazine Journalism and Features Writing course, which was my main reason for coming to this open day. When I first walked into the University I was bombarded by comments from my dad telling me all about how it had changed since he came here to study art, he even went as far to tell me that I was walking on the same stairs he used to walk up!? what?? ahaha As soon as I walked into the presentation room I was greeted by such friendly staff welcoming me, the room was laid out exactly like a typical newsroom (like the messy one you see on BBC news). During the presentation it just confirmed it all for me, THIS is the place I want to study at and THIS is the course I want to do. What interested me most is the fact that you get to actually complete work experience within the journalism industry, which I cannot wait for!! Southampton Solent bring in the best guest speakers from the industry to help assist you with your work and to give you tips for the future. My second career choice would be to become a infant or primary school teacher, as I enjoyed my year 10 work experience, working with year 3's, so much! On this course, should I decide to not like journalism for any reason you can move onto a teaching course with ease, this helped draw me into this course even more.
To round off this very positive and descriptive post, I just wanted to say that I now have my future decided and I just cannot wait to start! ahhhh :D
Thank you for reading!

University here I come....

Hello everyone! 

Sorry I haven't written a post in a while I've been busy with college work, essay after essay, my personal statement, panto preparation and work. Don't get me wrong I love to keep busy, but this all of this has completely blown me away! :/ I should keep on top of writing blog posts as it will help with my ambition of becoming a journalist, so from now on I will try to squeeze at least a small post out to be published every week.
Anyway now that the apologies are out of the way, I would like to talk about it being my final year at college and having to start thinking about universities. Which is a very scary thought as I don't feel old enough to go to university, even though I am 18 (an adult). Looking into courses that would interest me is what I spent the end of my summer doing, and this Saturday I will be attending my first university open day at Southampton Solent mainly to look at the 'magazine journalism and features writing' course which highly appeals to me. I'd love to get into the magazine industry, writing stories for established publications about music, fashion, live events etc. to express myself. Either that or designing the layout of magazines as I love art and design. Ahhhh writing about this now is getting me so excited!!!! I may not be moving away from home to go to university, but I will still get the 'uni feel', making new friends and gaining more freedom, which I can not wait to do. 
Writing my personal statement has been one of the only downsides to the UCAS process as you have to write about yourself well enough to create a great first impression of yourself with the courses lecturers who haven't actually ever met you. From this statement it will be decided whether you will be invited to attend an interview. I found writing a personal statement very difficult as you have to rave and big up yourself which I didn't really enjoy doing as I don't really like saying things like 'I'm the best at this' and 'I'm better than this person because..' It took me a while to get the fingers tapping away on the keyboard as I was told to write an amazing opening sentence to hold the readers attention. This sounded so much easier when my tutor said it, I probably sat there for a good 15-20 minutes thinking of what to write. :/ When I finally finished I had such a sense of relief and now all I have to do is make small changes, I can submit as many drafts as are necessary to get it 'perfect'.
I will write another blog post about what I thought of the university after I have visited it, hopefully it will be the same way I'm feeling prior to the visit! Southampton Solent here I come........

Thank you for reading my blog once again, I would appriciate it if have any feedback, no matter how little, to leave it in a comment below! Thanks :D