Week 6: My experience so far

Hello!

So it's six weeks since joining the Catch 22 Academy and so far there have definitely been LOLs and BOOs. As with any experience I suppose.

So let me start from the top.

I had a three-person panel interview. Honest opinion? SHOCKER. I don't think i've ever had a three-person panel interview before.

This made me think "ok, I knew this was a serious academy but I didn't know it was that serious!" It made me a little nervous but as always as the interview continued I became more relaxed. Especially as I seemed to be getting nodding heads of approval from the Managing Director of Catch 22, Toks and the Monday tutor Matilda.

Since getting accepted I've learnt so much!

E.g Blogging, types of features, court reporting, sub-editing, interviewing

There's so much more yet to come!

I think what has really been beneficial for

me are the morning feature meetings. It really forces you to think outside of the box. Not only that but using different places as inspiration.

I really admire and respect all the tutors here at Catch. Each of them

are very different yet very inspiring. They are all established in their respected fields which makes me feel very lucky to have them as tutors and mentors.

There's something that Toks said that has literally changed my life forever. He said that we should "EMBRACE FEAR".

Not only have I done this whilst being in the Academy but I've applied this "theory", if you will, in all areas of my life. It is so true. Embracing fear can only make you reach greater heights in whatever you choose to do.

I'll never forget that.

So let me do a quick fireround of what have been the highs and lows so far:

Highs

- Getting accepted!

- Getting thorough feedback from the teachers

- Meeting new people - some really nice people in this cohort, we have some characters!

- Court reporting - we went into a case of an old lady who was on trial for theft and fraud! So interesting.

Lows

- Not getting to do my original feature idea - but all's well that ends well because I'm enjoying the new feature
- Being late... twice - this makes me so annoyed because I'm never late but that A13 is persistent on being the bane of my life. But I won't let it.

- Being the "Terry's Chocolate Orange" of the group - for Sarah's blog we had to decide what chocolate we would be if we were one. Someone suggested I was a chocolate Orange and I despise that chocolate lol.

So at the moment I'm on this side of graduating from Catch 22 singing:

So, I'm hoping that by the end of the course as well as the placement I will be singing a song like this:

Maybe not about the "getting money" bit but... you know what I mean!

Tune into the next post where I'll be revealing this week's expedition at the pub - our first trip as a group!