Further Training
Boosting Your Confidence, Public Speaking and Performance (24th November, 2020)
I recently completed a course on LinkedIn Learning called ‘Boosting Your Confidence, Public Speaking and Performance’ hosted by Stifyn Parri who is the managing director of the company MR Producer.
This course was about ways to work on being more confident in front of audiences when having to do presentations. It also included how to use the nerves that occur before public speaking in a positive way and how to manage the feelings and thoughts that happen when presenting.
I chose to take part in this course as I need to improve on my confidence and public speaking skills as I lack these and I will need them for my career. I need to improve my confidence skills so that I am able to contribute my ideas and opinions into discussions as well as being able to hold presentations successfully and confidently.
One thing that I took from this course that I believe will be helpful when participating in public speaking situations is always knowing the setting that you are going to be presenting in. By visiting the setting before a presentation, it allows you to become more familiar with your surroundings and become more comfortable as there will be fewer surprises when it is time to present.
How to become a Purpose-Driven Journalist (24th November, 2020)
I took part in the ‘How to become a Purpose-Driven Journalist’ course on LinkedIn Learning hosted by Norah O’Donnell who is the second woman to hold the role of an anchor on the CBS Evening News.
In this course, O’Donnell speaks about the importance of having women in high power roles as not only an inspiration to the younger generation but also because they deserve to work in those roles. She also spoke about some of the most important qualities she believes that people who want to try to become a successful journalist, ‘Persistence, passion, professionalism’. She explains how she goes into each interview with a differing mindset and approach depending on who she’s interviewing so that she and audiences can get the most out of that interview.
By listening to this course, it has inspired me to keep working at my skills to become a successful journalist. By hearing another woman speaking about the opportunities that she has had and that more and more are becoming available for women to have, it makes me believe that I can become successful in this industry if I continue to improve my skillset and take advantage of opportunities.
Another aspect that Norah O’Donnell covered in her course that has inspired me was when she spoke about how she covered the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Houston. She spoke about how determined she was in showing audiences how bad the situation really was, and one thing that I hope to do as a journalist is being able to tell the true stories of those who are unable to.
Editing Mastery: How to Edit Writing to Perfection (26th November, 2020)
I took part in the Editing Mastery: How to Edit Writing to Perfection course on LinkedIn Learning. This course was hosted by Shani Raja who is a journalist and an editor and has worked at numerous journalism companies including the Wall Street Journal.
This course covered the method of deep editing a piece of writing. It went through the different parts to deep editing including content editing, structural editing, stylistic editing and the presentation of work. The course also went through how to overcome some difficulties that may occur when editing a piece of work for somebody.
I chose to take part in this course because I have not had a lot of experience with editing pieces of writing before and I have never had to edit a piece for professional purposes. As I want to work as a journalist in the future it is vital that I learn these editing skills.
From this course, I learnt about the deep editing method and the effects that it can have on a piece of writing. This is a method that I am going to try and incorporate when I edit my work in the future.
Royal Television Society (October, 2020)
I attended two seminars hosted by the Royal Television Society. The first event that I attended was a CV and application form workshop hosted by the BBC. I attended this workshop because I had not previously completed any work applications, therefore, I wanted to learn some ways to complete good application forms. Also, the BBC is a company that I am interested in working at, therefore, I wanted to see what they look for in an application. The other seminar I attended was hosted by journalists all working in different parts of the industry. I attended this workshop to hear advice from professionals in the industry on how they achieved their job roles.
