Final Reflections and What's in Store for the Future

This was an amazing experience. I would do it again in a heart beat. I learnt a lot in the two weeks I was there. While it was really quiet, I was given a few assignments where I learnt just how they do it in the real world and also new ways of improving my writing.

The most important question: What has this internship shown me?

The first week I was there I was an absolute wreck when it came to stress. Even though there wasn't a lot going on. I was constantly stressed that they would give me a story and I would go out, write it and they would hate it. I know part of this experience was to be thrown into the deep end. And a lot of that stress was from being thrown into the deep end. Which is good. It's happened and now in the real world I'll at least know how to paddle enough to keep me a float.

I'm not completely sure if this type of journalism is what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. No doubt I will reach a point in my career when writing a story would become second nature and I would know that it was good enough but I'm not entirely sure if I would actually enjoy doing this style of journalism. The fast pace of the newsroom of being sent out to put together a story with little to no preparation, while exciting, goes against my need for perfection and need to think about things before they are completed. I definitely think my enjoyment level will reflect in my writing also. This isn't to say that this whole time at the Canberra Times was a waste. It absolutely was not. I have learnt skills that I could never learn in a classroom. And I will take these skills to my next job whether it be one in TV or long form journalism. Both careers I will try and get into.

Finally..

This experience was, again, amazing. From ringing someone for an interview for the first time with an important newspaper to running out to a school and interviewing children for the first time. It was amazing to see how the whole process worked. How it starts with a tip, turns into an interview and finishes with a story. How this story is brought to the final meeting of the day and everyone decides where it's place in the newspaper should be. Again, I leant lessons in this internship that I could never hope to learn in a classroom. I would like to thank everyone at The Canberra Times and the University of Canberra for giving me this amazing opportunity. It is an event in my life that will remain with me for the rest of my career.