Everyone's a winner

Gair rhydd went to the Guardian's student media awards on Wednesday 25th and we didn't leave empty handed! But we didn't win either, shame.

Excuse the boring picture, unfortunately the photos of the night itself are either hard to make out because of the amount of dry ice they decided to pump into the place or are well, a little, uncivilised.

It was a raucous night at Proud in Camden largely due to the amount of free booze available which was being necked by nervous nominees as if their lives depended on it, including us lot. Us lot, from Cardiff had gair rhydd up for best paper and Quench up for best magazine, which won last year.

But alas, neither came out on top. Gair rhydd was pipped to the post by The Leeds Student but we did claim runner-up so still got our moment with Colin Murrary up on stage...reward enough some might say.

The future

Having finished (yes finished) my degree last week I am left with a lot of free time at the moment. I'm hoping this will be filled productively with more blogging, spending more time at gair rhydd and making plans for both summer (Argentina is beckoning) and the inevitable move to London.

I really hope it's inevitable - unfortunately it does depend on my getting a 2:1, which due to handing in my last assessed work last week is now out of my control! If I do achieve the revered 2:1 I will be heading off to the LCC (London College of Communication - as pictured) to study their MA in Print and Online journalism.

The decision to go there was a difficult one, having been offered a place on the postgrad courses at Bournemouth and here in Cardiff too. I dismissed Bournemouth fairly early on, not because I didn't like it but because I felt if I was to make a fresh start somewhere it may as well be in London. The Cardiff/London debate went on for some time - I'm sure irritating housemates, parents, friends and a couple of contacts from work experience, all of whom I was hoping would make the decision for me!

In the end I decided Cardiff's diploma in newspaper journalism, despite its fantastic reputation, was too narrow-focused for me. I've had a good amount of experience in newspapers: I was a volunteer reporter in Honduras, had a two week placement at the Times and of course three years in student media at University - and I have realised that I'm not sure I want to write the news!

The LCC is much more modern in its approach to teaching journalism - not requiring its students to choose to take the path of investigative or features journalism until the end of the course. I also like their general attitude towards their students - Gary Horne, the course director told me that just as he and the other teaching staff are working journalists he regards his students as such as soon as they walk through the door.

There are also the obvious advantages of being in London, not only home to many of the UK's biggest media companies but also a place where a vast amount of smaller ventures will be starting up and trying to find their place, all-in-all I think the big smoke will provide me with more opportunities.

I'm relatively blase at the the moment about the whole thing - my time at Cardiff coming to an end, starting a new university, moving to London (which must be twenty times the size of Cardiff!) I think it's because most of my friends are yet to finish their courses here at Cardiff and we are all looking forward to enjoying our last weeks at Uni without being burdened with scary thoughts about the future, many of us are also going to be descending on Glastonbury en mass to really see out three years properly!

Getting political

I recently ran in the student elections at University under the ridiculous alias of Emma 'Burgundy' Barlow (see one of my self-designed logos above) aka. Anchorman, the role made famous by Will Ferrell. I was running for the position of Head of Student Media and gair rhydd Editor, unfortunately I did not win!

Despite the end result being incredibly disappointing, the whole process was a fantastic experience as well as exhausting! The very nature of student politics means you have to leave all inhibitions at the door - donning a ridiculous outfit and adopting a gimmick is a standard requirement and unfortunately decent policies and experience seem to feature as rather less important.

However, I really did throw myself into the week and a half long campaign. Presenting a speech and dealing with some difficult questions in an official 'hustings' evening was a great opportunity to start flexing my self-promotion muscles and was in fact my first experience of proper public speaking. I also visited the various schools throughout the University to make announcements at lectures and speak to fellow students while they sat in cafes and refectories - taking me totally out of my comfort zone. It was testing too, when students wanted to question my ideas and ask me about my own political views but at the same time was also immensely satisfying to learn that people were interested enough to talk to me about it.

One of my main policies was to get all of our fantastic student media, Xpress radio, CUTV and gair rhydd, working together. I felt this was important as other media-savvy students would then be able to work together and share their skills. It would also raise the general standard, for instance Xpress and CUTV could benefit from working with the more experienced writers of gair rhydd. It is of course, also exactly the way most professional newsrooms now operate and I really think my experience at the BBC and at Honduras This Week would have helped me to get a more convergent media department up and running.

However, one my fellow News Editors, Emma Jones was elected and I'm sure she will do extremely well. I had been really unsure about nominating myself for the job a few weeks ago but even though I lost I am convinced just the experience of campaigning itself was worth its weight in gold.