Greetings, sorry for the delayed blog post but as many of you know we’ve all been bogged down with shorthand revision this past week. The good news though is that the exam fared well and we all felt confident afterwards. (I certainly did knowing I didn’t need any extra time [...] Read more »
NCTJ Fast Track Diploma, Sep 2012 – Feb 2013: Week 10
As our first shorthand exam approaches, rather than cramming in all the revision I can, I have been handed the responsibility of writing this week’s blog. The first exam has arrived very quickly, but I feel the general consensus is that the majority of us are ready to tackle 60 [...] Read more »
NCTJ Fast Track Diploma, Sept 2012-Feb 2013: Week 5
Next week is Reading Week for the NCTJ students which means that we were all given a mountain of work to do to keep up the momentum of the last few weeks. It isn’t really a week off, but it is to be expected from a fast-track course. We don’t [...] Read more »
NCTJ Fast Track Diploma, Sept 2012-Feb 2013: Week 4
My blog is late, I know. But I wanted to wait until I had something interesting to write about. So far, the course has been quite full-on with early starts and long days but I’ve learnt a lot. Our visit to court last week was interesting. I can’t reveal any [...] Read more »
NCTJ Fast Track Diploma, Sept 2012-Feb 2013: Week 3
This last week, the necessity for mastering that coveted power of shorthand hit me harder than George Michael hits photo shops in North London. And although it was as much of a shock, there was considerably less drink involved. I had just hung up the phone following the success of [...] Read more »
NCTJ Fast-Track Diploma, Sept 2012-Feb 2013: Week 2, Pt. 2
This week saw a prominent leap in our shorthand progress through learning a wide range of special outlines as well as testing ourselves at 40 words-per-minute pace. Monday started with a Newswriting exercise, incorporating all the style skills learned for intros as well key elements our stories must include. Tuesday’s Law lecture [...] Read more »
NCTJ Fast-Track Diploma, Sept 2012-Feb 2013: Week 2
“Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault” Good news: everyone knows each other’s names now and the collective awkward silences are very much on the decline, weekly news quizzes are, mostly, garnering higher scores into the second week (of course we’ve seen the [...] Read more »
NCTJ Fast-Track Diploma, Sept 2012-Feb 2013: Week 1
The well-trodden path to becoming a journalist has, for many, included a stop at Harlow College; and it is along at this same stop that 23 aspiring writers find themselves, as the first week of September 2012 NCTJ fast-track journalism course gets underway. Being one of the 23 myself, I [...] Read more »
Week 10
Another busy week, full of several shorthand lessons as well as the usual Law, News-writing and Public Affairs. This week we were visited by Patrick Fuller, a publisher from the Haymarket consumer media group. He gave us a presentation on his fulfilling career which has blossomed from selling classified advertisement [...] Read more »
Week 9
As well as the usual shorthand, News-writing, Law and Public Affairs lessons, the Harlow College trainee Newspaper journalists were visited by Telegraph journalist John Ley. He gave the class an inspiring talk on his incredible journalistic career and how he got to be where he is today. He taught us [...] Read more »