Sunday Smiles #3 - NCTJ Diploma Delivery

I don’t feel that this week’s Sunday Smiles is quite conventional because it’s not something that has made me giddy or excited but has provided a certain kind of happiness. I was officially enrolled on a diploma, and the box arrived with all my books.

I graduated in July, and it’s safe to say that it took me until September to recover from my degree. Education has always been a huge part of my life but, at the same time, it exhausts me. That being said, it didn’t take long until I was dying to get my head in a book.

My degree is in History and Journalism and I would definitely recommend a joint honours to anybody considering Journalism or to anybody who can get easily frustrated. As well as being able to study one of the most interesting subjects, it was also refreshing to close a History book and start writing an essay about something entirely different.

That being said, it did mean that I didn’t graduate with the nationally recognised Journalism diploma from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) which is where you learn Shorthand and the like. Basically, it’s pretty important.

But now I’m enrolled in a distance learning course to get that diploma and learn all the skills that come with it. The NCTJ recommends that the course will take between 6 months and 2 years to complete but there is absolutely no pressure (something I find quite blissful). I can study in my own time, in my own home, and work full time as well!

I’ve started to make some progress on my four core modules and begun to wrap my head around the concept of Shorthand. Every time I start a new unit I feel a bit overwhelmed as if there is no way that I could possible teach this stuff to myself, but once I’ve completed all of the exercises and reached the end of the unit the satisfaction is immense.

Outside of Shorthand I am re-doing the Law module that I already did in my first year (which is useful because it’s so important but I have, sadly, forgotten a lot of the jargon) a public affairs module (which looks really interesting) and a reporting module (which gives a lot of good practice for practical journalism skills which should never be sniffed at.)

I’ve found that education has largely given me a sense of purpose and focus. I think I’d feel a bit lost if I wasn’t enrolled on one course or another. But for this week (and hopefully the weeks to come) I am given a smile by the interesting things I’m lucky enough to study.

Oh, and also, I’m not the only one enjoying the box that the books came in:

Until next time!