Tips for media students

Media students:  don't just think 'project' , think 'career'


After 6 years of teaching media at various universities, one aspect of the industry I encourage my students to do is to think differently about the way they approach their project/assignment.

I find there are two mistakes students generally make when studying media studies. Lets use radio as an example:

Mistake one - Not thinking big!

The majority of students will put energy into producing something for the ears of their marking lecturer.  Which is totally understandable, after all they want a good grade to pass the module!

What students REALLY should be doing, is making their package/documentary of a good enough standard to send on to an actual radio station, after all, it's a career in radio they want isn't it? Their lecturer at University can't offer them a job, but a radio station can!

Don't just hand in the work to be marked, target a radio station that would play your feature out.
Local BBC Radio stations are a great starting point. Many BBC stations have a variety of features throughout the day that a student could easily create.  Ok, so the station may not play out the actual project, BUT it may give them food for thought and invite you to re-make the audio to a standard they could use?

Think about what you are making and who you are sending it to! If you are making a 10 minute feature on 'the future of farming' don't send it to a local 'hit music' station.  They would never play it, I don't even think the programme director would even take time to click on the audio!

BBC Radio 1 is a great example at the moment. They have changed the sound of the station quite dramatically recently (by making it much younger). It is not just the music that has a younger sound. they need new features to play out to a 'youth' audience. To the extent they have sent representatives to visit universities asking students to form ideas of what would make good programming for a youth target. You have to consider the people in charge of Radio 1 are much older than the Radio 1 target audience. A students work could be the trigger to a new feature that could be broadcast on national radio.



Mistake two: - Not using the FREE equipment/facilities 


All universities will invest in industry standard equipment. Make the most of the FREE equipment to make film/radio in your own time. Don't let it gather dust in a store room, use it! Make your own audio

A great example: The riots were happening here in the UK during the summer of 2011. One of my students knew there was trouble planned for the local city centre, so he hired some recording equipment from the media department. He went to to the city centre capture audio.

He spoke to witnesses, police and those who were ready to cause trouble! I would never suggest putting yourself in danger of a good story, but straight away, he was capturing audio that no other media outlet had. He, right there and then, became a freelance journalist. He had all this great audio and then rang national TV/Radio stations to ask if they would be interested in using it...which they did! His quick thinking of hiring recording equipment managed to get his work published on a national level. Pretty impressive for a 19 year old student?

You can gather audio and create a documentary/package about ANYTHING. Favourite musician, a hobby, a local story in your town/village.

The explosion of social media is helping up-and-coming broadcasters, certainly radio. Tweeting audio will gather pace with re-tweets. People can share your work posted on facebook.

Using accounts like Soundcloud, Mixcloud and Audio Boo are well worth while. The tagging is also very important.


The world is LITERALLY your oyster. The world is listening.