Kirstie's job log: 33

The story so far... Kirstie gave up her job in sales to pursue her dream of a career in journalism with a Masters at Westminster University.

Out and about

 

It’s the last day of the week on my fourth week into the course. The Media Law class we normally have in the afternoon has been cancelled, allowing for some much needed time to catch up on work, articles and blogging.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, and we’re already being sent out and about looking for news stories. Last Wednesday we all took a trip down to City Hall, to watch Mayor’s Question Time with Boris Johnson, and he was very entertaining. After being asked about the Sir Ian Blair affair, he announced to the room that there was no ‘wacko Tory plot’ and the idea was ‘absolute tripe'.

This Wednesday we were sent off in pairs to go to any Court in London and find a story to write about. I’m at the University of Westminster campus that’s based in Harrow, so with a few others I headed to the Harrow Crown Court, though there were others that managed to get into the Old Bailey!

Going out on assignments like this has been a great way to get to know parts of London that we wouldn’t normally go to. On Monday a few of us have to go to Queens Park and interview local residents on an issue the council has raised, and so I’ll get to see a little more of the residential area.

Twenty minutes away

The campus I’m staying on is very different to other university campuses around London; for a start, we have a giant playing field and very quiet roads! It’s also only a 20-minute ride on the Tube to get into central London, which is great whenever you fancy a day out at the weekends. It’s also a lot cheaper to buy food (and luxuries!) than it would be in the centre.

On the other hand, it doesn’t quite feel like we’re really in London. The university has a campus in Regent’s Street, which I visited a couple of days ago to look at their gym, and it’s only a couple of hundred yards from Oxford Street Station! Right on their doorstep are giant versions of Topshop, H&M, United Colours of Benetton, Niketown…

Back in my Halls at Harrow campus, I’ve started to get to know the people in my flat. Apologising for the fact that no one was able to boil the kettle (because I’d borrowed the lead for my computer monitor) was a good way to break the ice! Almost everyone is a postgraduate student, and there’s quite a mix of different courses, from PR Studies to Film. You know you’re back at uni when you bump into flatmates making coffee at 2 in the morning!

Sorry, I’m busy

I didn’t think it was possible, but the amount of work has picked up as well. Blogging every evening is a must, as we’re going to be marked on the frequency as well as the content of our blogs. Picking a subject to talk about was hard, but I eventually decided to write about motorbikes (even though I know very little about the technical side of things!), and so far it seems to be going well.

At the moment, I’m worried about becoming that boring postgraduate student every flat has that doesn’t go out very often because they’ve got too much to do. Last time I was at uni, we would always invite the postgrads to come out with us, but were usually turned down. Eventually we stopped asking, and although that hasn’t happened yet, I’ve only managed to make it out once since I started!

So my aim for the next couple of weeks is to catch up on all the work I need to do, and make sure I also have time to go out in the week. After all, I don’t want to be missing out on all those cheap student priced drinks!

• See Kirstie's previous job logs.

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