{"id":13425,"date":"2021-05-13T08:28:57","date_gmt":"2021-05-13T08:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/2021\/05\/13\/cardiff-student-heroes-catriona-aitken\/"},"modified":"2021-09-15T15:01:52","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T15:01:52","slug":"cardiff-student-heroes-catriona-aitken-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/cy\/cardiff-student-heroes-catriona-aitken-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff Student Heroes: Catriona"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After winning the \u2018Reach journalism for a digital audience award\u2019 from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), Catriona\u2019s career as a news reporter has gone from strength to strength<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

MA News Journalism graduate, Catriona, has recently been recognised for obtaining the highest marks out of around 250 students across the UK in her Digital Audiences NCTJ exam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the win where she was awarded a \u00a3250 cash prize, she was shortlisted for NCTJ\u2019s Student of the Year, which is judged from the entire body of student journalists in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While facing challenging circumstances at the time of the exam, as well as being kicked out of it twice on the digital platform, she said she is over the moon that it has all worked out in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a real surprise and I\u2019m really grateful for the money,\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was really chuffed that I\u2019d got a good mark in there because it was really hard in that exam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NCTJ\u2019s principal examiner Amanda Ball, said<\/a> the talent on this year\u2019s list of award winners deserve extra special recognition for their exceptional performance while studying during a global pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oxbridge of Journalism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since completing the course at the end of August last year, Catriona has gone on to start full-time work as a reporter at the Basingstoke Gazette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite describing the experience of full-time work as tiring and \u201cvery different to being a student\u201d, she believes the vocational nature of her masters at Cardiff gave her all the necessary skills needed to tackle it face on.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the course is fantastic. I mean, you’ve got a purpose-built journalism building right in the city centre which I think it makes you feel like you’re in a newsroom, and you’re working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn our course, they split the city up by patches, and we all had a patch to cover so it was very realistic as to how we would be working at a local paper or local news website.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MA journalism courses at Cardiff University (News, Broadcast and Magazine) are highly regarded and widely respected in the industry, with the schools at Cardiff and City London often being regarded<\/a> as the \u2018Oxbridge\u2019 of journalism.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catriona agreed that studying at Cardiff has been invaluable to her career progression, and with networking being a crucial way to get your foot in the door, finding friends for life on the course means she now has \u201c19 contacts across the country\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think people recognize Cardiff as somewhere that’s known for journalism so it’s definitely no bad thing to have on your CV. But I think as well as that, Cardiff has opened up a lot of opportunities to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had recruiters from nationals or agencies come and speak to us every week which was so interesting as you then get an idea of what it’d be like to work in different kinds of news environments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She recognises there is a real support network and sense of belonging at JOMEC (School of Journalism, Media and Culture) and even today, she still has conversations with her personal tutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, Catriona is taking it as it comes down in Basingstoke, and hopes to sit her NCTJ seniors exams in the near future.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for her advice to other aspiring young journalists, she emphasised that work experience is key. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And once you do figure out journalism is for you, and maybe find yourself on a masters course, ask lots of questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat’s the time to ask all the questions because you just don’t know how that might be useful when you’re out in the working field,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s a fun job when you get to speak to loads of people and meet loads of interesting people so try, even when it feels busy, to enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After winning the \u2018Reach journalism for a digital audience award\u2019 from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), Catriona\u2019s career as a news reporter has gone from strength […]","protected":false},"author":1499,"featured_media":13420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[717,755,242,251,741,748,1365,714,705],"tags":[939,1388,1389,804,1390,1391,1392,1393],"class_list":["post-13425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice-for-students-cy","category-after-university-cy","category-studying-cy","category-only-in-cardiff-cy","category-opportunities-cy","category-postgraduate-study-cy","category-student-heroes-cy","category-student-life-cy","category-why-university-cy","tag-journalism-cy","tag-journalism-masters-cy","tag-journalism-media-and-cultural-studies-cy","tag-masters-cy","tag-nctj-cy","tag-news-cy","tag-reporter-cy","tag-success-stories-cy"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1499"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13892,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13425\/revisions\/13892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/insiders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}