I can’t believe it is almost 2020. Probably how most blogs are going to start in the coming weeks. I started this blog in January 2019, at home in Newcastle, six months after graduating from the University of Exeter, UK, still without a “real job.” I had volunteered at festivals throughout the summer, worked the whole month at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and was debating between doing a ski season in France or moving to Sevilla, Spain, to work at a TV/film production company. I went with the latter, deciding it was more related to the career path I wanted to take. The three months in Spain were amazing for my language skills, meeting new people, and discovering a new city. However, in April 2019, I was back to square one again, at home in Newcastle without full-time employment.
I again volunteered at festivals, worked as a TV runner in a freelance/very on-off capacity, and was filling out job applications every day for everything from journalism to consultancy to working in theatres and production companies. In May, things very quickly went from screening phone calls to face-to-face to final stage Skype with a talent management company. Not something I’d ever considered before, or even to a real-life job people did! I’d known of the company for many years and followed the industry of YouTube, blogging, and podcasts for many years, too, but had no idea this could be an industry I could be qualified to work in.
I started on July 1st, 2019, and I’m still in the same job! I passed my 3-month probation in October and will hopefully pass the 6-month one in January. I love every aspect of it. Even the “boring/less fun” parts of the job, in my opinion, such as finance and legal, are relatively interesting in the context of the work. Every day is different, I work with brilliant people, and I genuinely learn something new every day, whether it be some behind-the-scenes tech knowledge of Instagram or random law jargon. I am hoping to continue to write this blog bi-monthly in 2020, so I can hopefully document the journey going forward!
Last week, I attended the second annual BBC Radio 4 Student Journalism Awards, in which I won the 2018 prize for ‘Best Student Programme’ last year. It was so great to return and be able to talk about the work I’ve done since and give advice to current students – mainly to make the most of the flexibility and freedom of university and enjoy it while it lasts!
I can’t wait to see what the next year brings. Will I stay in London? Will I be in the same house share? Will I live abroad again? Will I develop within the same company? (I hope so!) Who will I meet? What exciting events will I go to? Which fun work projects will I be involved in? I need to start writing my New Year’s Resolutions soon, I know two of them already:
- To read two books per month (This may be easy for some and would be for a younger me, but since the age of 16 my reading has drastically reduced, I managed just over one per month this year, so aiming for two next year!
- Three new cities (I luckily managed this very quickly in 2019, due to moving to Sevilla and visiting Málaga and Córdoba at that time) Maybe I could aim for three new countries too…
Thank you for reading my final blog post of 2019, see you in 2020!
WHERE ELSE TO FIND ME:
Sobremesa (tri-lingual student radio show archive): https://www.mixcloud.com/Alexandra_McLeod/
Media things Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AlexandraSobremesa/
YouTube and Geography blog: https://alexandrasobremesa.wordpress.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-mcleod-79b7a8107?trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile