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).

This is a story I wrote for Kent Online. You can listen to vox-pops – conducted and edited by my colleague James Woodcock – here.

“Ridiculous!”

That’s how one Kent student describes the review, released today by Lord Browne, outlining the biggest reforms of higher education in half a century.

The controversial review recommends removing the limit on tuition fees, currently capped at £3,290 a year.

The government would underwrite fees up to £6,000, paving the way for them to double.

But to soften the blow students would only begin to pay back their loans once they started earning more than £21,000 a year, instead of the existing threshold of £15,000.

On the University of Kent’s Medway campus, opinions on the potential rise were divided.

Joe Clemence, 21, said it would not put him off: “If it was £6,000 I’d still apply – it’s an investment in the future.

“It’s good debt instead of bad debt, that’s the way I look at it.”

However, 21-year-old Leanne Holt thinks it is “ridiculous”.

“It would certainly make me think twice about going,” she said.

Patrick Nganzi, 19, studies accounting and finance. He said tuition fees were high enough already.

He said: “Raising them would put a lot of people off. I know a lot of people who didn’t go because they thought fees at the moment were too high.”

Nathan Reynolds, an 18-year-old IT student, said: “It’s preposterous that they can raise the fees. I think middle class and lower class students won’t be able to apply for university in that case. It will be families that have a wealthier background.”

Lauren Crowley, vice president of education at Kent University’s student union, said students would definitely be deterred from going to university.

She said: “Students may be forced to go to university that’s lower down on the league tables because that’s all they can afford rather than what their ability dictates.

“I think Lord Browne has failed to actually talk to students and put the personal aspect into the review.”

If I needed any further indication that the summer is coming to an end, the pitter patter of rainfall on my bedroom window provided it.

After near enough three months off my thoughts are starting to turn back towards Medway and the University of Kent.

The bulk of my time off has been taken up by two things: football and work experience. For the first month of my holiday I watched the majority of what was a disappointing World Cup.

The day after the final I started a two-week placement with the Medway Messenger – which is based in the same office as Kent Online.

To say I did a bit of everything would be an understatement. I wrote about everything from teddy bears picnics and footpath closures to snake bites and court cases.

It was an enjoyable and fulfilling fortnight of bread and butter reporting that I have taken a great deal from.

For the majority of this month I was back at Sky News Online. After familiarising myself with the CMS again I was thrown into the fray, being given stories to cover and picture galleries to compile.

Over the three weeks I wrote stories on the floods in Pakistan, mudslides in China, the heightened tensions between North and South Korea, the collapse of the tour operator Sun4U and much more besides.

The piece I was most pleased with, however, was a warning from the victims of the ‘Amazon’s Chernobyl’ to those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that they should be prepared to wait years, even decades, for compensation.

I pitched, sourced and compiled all of the elements to the story, and it was published on my last day there.

At the end of the placement I was throughly knackered, and since then I have been reacquainting myself with a long lost friend called sleep.

Once Freshers Week is over I think we’ll begin to grow apart again!

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.

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…

On Saturday I made a speech at the University of Kent’s Scholarship Benefactors Garden Party in Canterbury, expressing my thanks to the people that have funded the scholarship and given me such a wonderful opportunity. I hope that came across in what I said. It may sound like a cliche but I don’t think words can properly convey my gratitude.

Right now I have butterflies in my stomach – the nerves are beginning to hit me. I suppose I’ll be fine once I get stuck in to things. From the sounds of it I’ll be doing just that, working at Five News, Sky News Radio, the Sky News website and also in various parts of the television operation.

Anyone that knows me will by now know that I’m a sucker for nerves – I’m a serial worrier. But right now I feel excited more than anything.

I cannot wait to get started.