Simone Stewart

Year of Graduation: 2012

  • Course BA Broadcast Journalism
  • School Wolverhampton School of Art
  • Nationality British
  • Career industry Video & Animation Production
  • Current job title Assistant Producer
  • Current Company Shoot the Company

Dream big and work hard, don't keep up with the Kardashians - keep up with yourself.

My favourite memories from being at university are the friends that I have made who I am still friends with to this day. Moving abroad for my work placement in Italy, that was a great part of uni. It gave me so many life skills and a great experience of a new country. Academic-wise, sport is something which I have loved from an early age so when we finally got to do sports journalism as a course I was very happy to be studying it.
Beyond a degree, I think most employers value experience as well as some formal training. After graduating I found it hard to get a job in journalism as many employers wanted a NCTJ degree rather than a journalism degree. For the job that I do now as a video journalist, I needed more practical skills such as filming and editing more than anything but that's not to say some of the skills I picked up from my course haven't helped me. Media law and basic reporting skills in particular have been useful. Through my role as a video journalist for BBC News online I created digital videos for the BBC News website, news app and social media. I came up with video ideas and see the whole process through from start to finish. I created the idea, research contributors, go out and film and edit it once it's done. I've also kept up to date with current news and know what's going on. During the 2020 pandemic we ran live pages on our website I was tasked with finding positive news stories of what people are doing on popped them on our live feed.
Winning best digital video award at the BBC England awards in 2019.
Make sure that the course is for you and you know that this is definitely what you want to study. Make the most of your time if you do go, in terms of networking, getting experience and working so that when you leave you have some experience built up.