For a start I’ve managed to get a job at the Medway Messenger as a trainee reporter. I will start when I finish my university degree.

I know how lucky I am to get a job at the first attempt and I can’t wait to start working on a fantastic news patch.

I am also doing a bit of media work for the Medway Citizens Advice Bureau which deals with a number of issues in the Medway Towns.

At the moment the majority of my time is being taken up by my final year project – a radio documentary on Somerset and its elderly population which could very well make or break my final degree mark. I will post a link to the finished version when it’s all done.

My shorthand is up to 90wpm and I need to up it to 100 to get my NCTJ qualification.

I have started ‘playing’ the guitar, although I’m no Slash just yet.

My ’97 Renault Clio finally bit the dust in December – and gave me burns on my right arm in the process. Now I have got a Ford Escort which is in pretty good shape considering it is 10 years old.

Chelsea continue to blow hot and cold in what has been a frustrating season.

I’m still dreaming of ending the campaign with a Champions League final at Wembley, which is when I will be leaving uni after an enjoyable three years.

Delivering the third Bob Friend Memorial Lecture at the University of Kent on Friday night, Snow said events in the Middle East demonstrate the benefits of social media websites but also that newspapers are becoming dated very quickly.Leaders in Tunisia and Egypt have been forced from power after mass protests driven by services like Twitter and Facebook.

Snow said: “I don’t think people will look to newspapers for news. I don’t think people are patient enough to read news in that way.”

Before his lecture, titled ‘From film to Twitter – the media revolution: is the golden age of journalism come or gone?’, Snow presented this year’s winner of the Bob Friend Memorial Scholarship, Tania Steere, with her award.

Tania will spend a month working at Sky News in the summer and will have her first year tuition fees paid by the broadcaster.

In his lecture Snow argued journalism is entering a new ‘golden age’ but there were risks associated with it.

“There’s never been a better time to become a journalist,” he said.

“When I started in television we were using film, there was no video. The only video was two inches wide and needed two people to load it onto the machine. You then had three hours while it went through the chemical process. You had breathing space to do a job.

“Now it’s instant – news channels could now be dubbed ‘never old for long’. All this information needs mediating.

“We need people we can trust to interpret what’s actually going on. We now live in an absolute maze of different pieces of information. People are putting up misinformation. Who those people are it is difficult to know.”

The scholarship is a partnership between the University, Sky News and the Friend family. It is a memorial to the life of Bob Friend, one of the original presenters of Sky News, who started his career in Kent.

Previous speakers include the Director General of the BBC Mark Thompson (2010) and the head of Sky News John Ryley (2009).

Before I started university I remember saying to a friend in the pub one night that it would most probably fly by. That’s exactly what has happened.

Last week I finished my second year studying journalism at the University of Kent.

This time next year I’ll be entering the big wide media world, looking for a job and aiming to ascend to the top of the greasy pole.

It’s a scary, but at the same time enticing, prospect.

For now I can enjoy a little bit of down time (and of course the World Cup), after what was a typically hectic end of term.

The highlight was my two weeks at the Independent.

Admittedly it was a little intimidating walking into a national newsroom for the first time. However, I settled in well and really enjoyed it. On my first day I was sent out to Watford to do some election vox popping and managed to get my name in the paper. Before the week was out I managed to get a few sidebars published.

At the end of the week, after being sent out to do another vox pop for the Independent on Sunday, I was invited to spend my final week there.

While a few of my ideas and articles fell by the wayside, the main story I was given to work on came off. I was tasked with finding Julie Andrews fans and their ‘favourite things’ related to the singer, ahead of her concert at the O2 Arena.

After an initially fruitless search I managed to find, with the help of Andrew Johnson – another reporter on the paper – a dozen or so and got quotes and pictures. The article appeared on pages 12 and 13 and I was absolutely ecstatic.

I was also lucky enough to be picked to work as a stringer on election night for Sky News. I was based down in Medway on the night, covering Gillingham and Rainham, where the incumbent MP Paul Clark had a majority of just 15.

Thanks to a few cans of Relentless, a keen ear and some nimble fingers, I was able to get the result back to Sky News HQ before any of the other media organisations reported it.

Away from the newsroom the football season came to its conclusion, and what a season it was for Chelsea.

Carlo Ancelotti and his players recovered from yet more Champions League heartbreak – this time against Inter Milan – to win the club’s first ever league and cup double – the most successful season in the club’s history.

Along the way I witnessed – and wrote about – some quite sensational games of football – the 2-1 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford, the 7-0 victory at home to Stoke, and of course the game that wrapped up the title – Chelsea 8-0 Wigan.

You can read my thoughts on what was an historic season here.

Now it’s time for some rest and relaxation – with some work experience sandwiched in between – before I return to Kent for my last year at uni.

As ever at the CfJ, it has been a very busy few weeks.

On 24th February, us second year undergraduates had our online newsday. We had a website – called the Centre for Journalism Newswire -  which was designed and maintained by Nick Poskitt, who did a fantastic job. From eight in the morning until five in the evening we were tasked with keeping it updated with news, video and audio under Beckah Floyd, who was editor.

I was on Sport and Comment, and it turned out to be an enjoyable day. Each desk produced at least one piece of multimedia content and the traffic we received wasn’t too shabby given it was our first day.

Last Wednesday (3rd March), the Director General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, delivered the second Bob Friend Memorial Lecture at the university. This years winner of the Bob Friend Memorial Scholarship is Daniel May, who seemed really pleased at winning. I’m sure he’ll enjoy his time at Sky News as much as I did.

I covered the lecture for the Centre for Journalism website (which also has video clips) and also got a bylined piece in the local paper – the Medway Messenger. At the end of the lecture Thompson took questions from the audience and I asked him about the closure of 6 Music and the BBC Asian Network, which gave me the top line for my piece.

Allan Little also visited the centre today and talked to first and second years about the industry and passed on some tips to us. My colleague Rebecca Hughes has posted on her site about his visit – incidentally she launched her site today.

In addition I’ve begun writing for Bleacher Report as a Chelsea Featured Columnist. The Blues are hardly a boring club to support or write about but these past few weeks have provided me with plenty of source material. The fan in me hopes I’ll be writing about a trophy win or two come May. You can view my columns by clicking here.

Next week of course it is the return of The Special One, Jose Mourinho, to Stamford Bridge, which should prove to be a very nervous evening. I’ll be in my usual seat in the West Stand, paying homage to the man who won us so many trophies during that glorious three-year spell.

That’s it for the moment. I doubt I’ll have much time to post on here before the end of term (9th April) as I have the usual deluge of essays and assignments to do before then. Bye for now.

As part of the online block of my Convergent Journalism module, the Centre for Journalism is having an online newsday on Wednesday (24th February).

Throughout the day we will be adding articles and multimedia content to a custom built website – the CfJ Newswire.

The site isn’t 100% ready, but be sure to check it out on the day for all the latest news, comment and sport.

Any feedback is much appreciated.

Around this time of year everyone makes resolutions that they swear they’ll keep: lose weight, join the gym, give up smoking etc. I’m not usually one for New Year’s resolutions but perhaps I should pledge to make mine this: write on here more.

My first term back at uni was hectic to say the least, and combined with my shifts for Goal.com, this place has been left feeling pretty neglected. I’ve currently got a month off and to be perfectly honest I’ve used a fair amount of it to reacquaint myself with a long lost friend – sleep.

My work for Goal continues, the usual Wednesday night news shift has been supplemented with live commentaries of Birmingham v Chelsea (0-0), Aston Villa v Liverpool (0-1) and the shock of the FA Cup Third Round, Manchester United’s 1-0 defeat to old rivals Leeds United. Midweek it’s the Carling Cup Semi Finals and I’ll be providing live updates of Blackburn Rovers against Aston Villa.

I’ve also been catching up on a bit of reading over the holidays. The other week I finished All The President’s Men. A little confusing at first, the book quickly grabbed me and by the end I was left feeling inspired. Speaking of inspired, I was given Harold Evans’ book My Paper Chase for Christmas and have hardly put it down since. Evans’ writing is a joy as he takes you through his illustrious career – from the Ashton-under-Lyne Reporter to the editor’s chair at The Sunday Times. He tells it with a good dose of humour, but also empathy and emotion, such as when discussing his campaign for the victims of the Thalidomide scandal.

In addition, Drew Westen’s The Political Brain and Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation have bookmarks lodged in them somewhere and are demanding to be finished off.

Uni work is siting on my desk – a presentation on my month at Sky News for the first year students at the Centre for Journalism, a 2,500 word feature and, of course, shorthand practice. That trio will take up a fair chunk of my time before it’s time to make my way back down to Gillingham once again for another term down in Kent.

The joys of university

My shoulder aches from having to carry books that would kill a small child if dropped upon them from a significant height, my headaches are getting more and more frequent and my caffeine intake is erring on the side of dangerous. That can mean only one thing – I’m back at uni.

The work is piling up already – reading, presentations and video assignments – but the journalism course on offer at the University of Kent is not your typical undergraduate degree. Despite the stress it’s a lot of fun, I wouldn’t want to be learning the tricks of the trade anywhere else.

My main body of work over the next six weeks will come in the form of six 45 seconds to 1 minute video pieces on a story of my choice. While I think coming up with a great idea every week might prove problematic, I’m relishing the chance to improve my video skills, which, If I’m honest, are not as strong as they should be.

As a result I’ll find the time I can dedicate to this website will decrease, but I’ll try to keep it updated as regularly as I can with the usual mix of current affairs and football. Now if you’ll excuse me I think I hear my kettle boiling…

To tweet or not to tweet?

That is the question facing many of today’s journalists. With increasing numbers of people keeping their followers up to date with what they are doing, hacks are starting to examine the opportunities this latest social networking craze offers.

It is a question that has also sparked a healthy debate on the Centre for Journalism (the website of my university course) a few weeks ago.

For the uninitiated the premise behind Twitter is devilishly simple: tell the world what you’re doing, in less than 140 characters.

Some argue it is simply a chance for people to post trivial updates about the mundane occurrences in their daily life. For example, Joe Bloggs could tweet that he is currently (stop the press) eating a piece of toast.

Others argue that it has its uses for journalists. I fall into this camp.

Of course it can be used for trivial nonsense that no one outside of your circle of friends will be interested in, but there are many ways journalists can utilise it to their benefit.

You could use it to quickly check the latest headlines. Media organisations are already establishing a presence on the platform. Sky News, BBC News and the Guardian all have Twitter accounts which are updated with the latest articles from their websites, with a link provided to the original piece.

A whole myriad of organisations, companies and personalities (most notably Stephen Fry) have Twitter accounts. The afore mentioned media organisations are paying attention to the opportunities Twitter offers and clearly wouldn’t be dabbling in it if they didn’t think it was of some use to them.

Although it might not be feasible for us to have one, the Twitter wall idea featured in an article from Ian’s (one of my lecturers) Delicious feed is another way the media can use Twitter to their benefit.

Since I started my course in September of last year, there have been countless examples of Twitter being put to good use.

The first picture of the plane that crashed into the Hudson river was posted on Twitter.

Sky News’ used Twitter to keep users of the channel’s website updated with the scene outside Jade Goody’s home after she died, and also during her funeral.

The channel also utilised the service to cover the G20 Protests. The length of Tweets proved perfect for quick updates on the latest developments in the protests, such as the windows of an Royal Bank of Scotland being smashed.

I first found out about the shooting of PC Steven Caroll in Northern Ireland via Twitter. I just happened to check the Twitter app on my iPhone before I went to sleep.

The death of Michael Jackson led to an absolute explosion of the amount of tweets on Twitter. The ‘trending topics’ (the most popular subjects of the tweets posted on the site) were dominated by the King of Pop.

I can also use Twitter to alert people when I post something on my blog, which is a handy way of directing more traffic to the website.

So to sum up, I think Twitter can be used by us journalists to help us do our jobs.

Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

They write: “Today’s journalism students are entering an industry that’s facing a crossroads. These days, newspapers and media in general are adapting and growing at a rapid pace, and it’s essential that students keep up, or they’ll be left in the dust. By reading these blogs, you can keep an ear to the ground on the latest developments that matter the most to journalism students.”

The list is broken down into various categories, including investigate and photo journalism, as well as more general sites.

One omission from the list, however, is Journalism.co.uk, a site I have found eminently useful for news, tips and analysis.

“This list is doing the rounds ‘100 Best Blogs for Journalism Students – Learn-gasm‘… and we’re not on it. Nope, not even a smidgeon of link-love for poor old Journalism.co.uk there,” they lament.

In response the site has added some of its own suggestions, including a certain Centre for Journalism.

Everyone else from the CfJ who has just finished their placements (and are no doubt glad to now have a hard-earned two week break) seemed to enjoy it and get some bylines from it, including a front-page story.

So no pressure there then!

From speaking to Nick (who has just finished his placement there) it seems I will be worked very hard, but should get some bylines to add to my portfolio, which is still in its formative stages.

The only thing is, I’ll have to spend two weeks at Peak House (to avoid paying an insane amount in petrol), my (very) humble student abode. But then again no one ever said journalism was easy!

No doubt I’ll be blogging throughout my placement, Peak House internet connection permitting.