Final reflection

Here we are, the end of uni.

When writing this post two feelings overwhelm me. One the one hand I’m happy to leave and go back home with my friends and my family and the sun especially. Yet on the other hand I’m a bit sad to leave, I know I’m going to be back but I have met a lot of people that were here only for one year and I might never see them again. Though we all said we would keep in touch and we will try to see each other again, we never really do it.

Anyway, for me uni was such a big change. I was told uni was going to be different from high school but I never thought the gap would be that deep.

to give you an idea, this is how I felt in high school :

 

A little sheep among the cattle, with a shepherd guiding me through the path I had to take. He was behind me to help me with my choice, to give me piece of advice for my future and my work. He was there  all the  way to help me moving forward by securing each of my movement and making sure I wasn’t going away and that I carry on walking straight that I was taking the right path.

 

 

And this is how I felt at uni :

I felt like the man in Friedrich’s portait, Wander above a sea of fog.He is on his own contemplating a sea of fog, the fog here represents  what is unsure in other term the future.  He is starring at the unknown, indeed we know that something is going to happen, but we don’t know what.Though he is at the foreground, he is surrounded by the fogs, we can’t see his face meaning that he is too preoccupied by what is in front of him to address a look backward. We can also see that no one is here to help him to know what he has to do or even just to make a sign. The decision is entirely his, it’s man vs nature. For me it was the same :  it was literally me; me vs uni. When I first arrived I had absolutely no idea how I was going to cope with it. When  I arrived during the fresher week, it was like facing an ocean, the uni offered a lot of things, it was so wide i didn’t know where to begin. Lots opportunities were offered to me, I had to look deeply, take my time and chose wisely not to fall because I wanted to take the best of it and make the most of it by the same occasion.

So like the man in the portrait, this post will be my reflection of my year as a Fresher at Coventry university. I’m going to share with you my ups and downs and all the progress made during the academic year, what I could have avoid and what I could have done.

Journalism! yeah I said it, so far I haven’t regretted my choice. Journalism is everything I love : meeting new people, talk to them and create a relationship in order to have new point of views or share stories. This is amazing, actually it’s what I aim at in life! It’s the third time I change the city I’m living in, some people might  think that not having a stable life, a stable place to stay (because I live between France and England) is not ideal. Indeed in three years I went to college in three different city : Ormesson, Chichester and Coventry. Actually it’s everything but annoying. I got to meet new people everywhere I go.  It’s by travelling to these places and meeting all these marvellous personalities that I realised how big the world was that it was way too big only to stay in one place.  I still don’t know which career I would like to pursue in journalism however  I know I that i would like to be in this industry. Before coming to uni was not sure 100% what I wanted, I picked journalism because it seemed to be something wide. 

The course was not really what I expected from journalism. I was expected something very wide yet the only modules we had were about journalism and media. Said like that you may think : ‘What the hell are you expecting from Journalism and Media if it’s not journalism and media?!’ and  ‘French people are always complaining!’ But if I want to be a journalist one day, I  must have general knowledge and know about wider topics like politics or business or art etc.. I can’t be a journalist if I am not an expert in any other field. Indeed nowadays most of journalists  haven’t done any journalism school; they have politics or geography degrees :as long as they know their topics they don’t need any formation to write. You can write or you can’t, you can’t be taught how to write, lecturers can help you improving your stories but they are not here to teach  you root of the job because it’s something innate which flows in your vains. 

Skills: the course also helped me to develop different skills, from communication skills to technical skills. Now I am able to use  a vast array of softwares : Adobe audition, premiere pro, photoshop, final cut pro etc..  Master the technical side of the media industry was not easy, though we were told how to operate it was up to us to succeed or not. It’s how uni was different from high school,  lecturers were not here to make sure we trained, the choice was all ours. You can find all the different work I have done on my vimeo and youtube accounts . Now i feel quite confident for editing, what misses in my work and in my portfolio is deep stories about people and not just music or sports reviews. 

Coventry, to be honest at the beginning of the academic year I was wondering ‘What am I doing here?’. Though it’s huge city there’s not much to do, no actually there are some lovely parks (Coventry War Memorial park) when the weather it’s clement. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Organisation: my biggest failure in life has always been my lack of organisation. As far as I know I have never been able to be organised but this has change since this year. Indeed this year I managed to do my uni work along writing for 3 student websites ( Studentcom, Student365, Studentlifeblog), work as a retail assistant, have a radio show, write my two personal blogs (this blog and my cooking blog) , read and also hang out with my friends.  I was tired of being unorganised so one day i decided to change. I only failed once for an essay I hand in  an essay 10 minutes before the deadline. Having reflected I’m glad I have changed and I know I am able to be a person very organised person when I want. 

A new culture: I wasn’t born in England, I moved there two years ago. In my college year I was hanging out with French speaking people but for uni I told myself I was not going to make the same mistake because there’s no point travelling to another country to speak its own langage. The first moments were a little bit tough, but being with english people brought  me  so much.  I discovered things I didn’t know, I ate things I never ate before. OMG Porridge, that is so good it’s not very popular in France; since I have discover that I would have it every morning. God bless lemon curd!! a little spoon of this precious liquid will be enough to make someone smile. What else … GRAVY! I always have my granules in my cupboard. And something I would have never imagine, tea mixed with milk. The first time is proper weird but when we used to it it’ good. Hanging out with English lads also taught me new vocabulary, indeed in France schools we are taught very academic vocabulary and not everyday voc so it’s very handy when being with English people. I also discovered new bands like Haim, the 1975, the Neighbourhood, CHVRCHES. 

When I left France I had an utopic vision of England, but after having travelled I realised  everywhere was the same. You can find good and bad people everywhere, I still love England though don’t be mistaken. Actually one thing may be different from France, courtesy. People queuing before getting on the bus or the tube, we don’t see that often in France. 

I enjoyed writing this post because it was like a review of my first year of journalism at Coventry University. During this year I acquired experience and technique regarding media production but also regarding the human side. I’m still learning and will learn forever . I’m sorry if this post might seem long and tedious to read but I needed to take the time to express myself  and all the feelings. To conclude, I would say that I have taken all my time to settle down at uni in order to avoid loosing time and I’m happy with all the choices I have made so far.