After watching Wales Six Nations opening defeat to England, I had been recommended to watch a documentary, Who Gets the Best Jobs?. It's a documentary which focuses on the issue with class and how major job firms deal with it. It was a fantastic, fascinating, yet frustrating hour as BBC Special Correspondent Richard Bilton, who was raised in a lower class environment, looks into the realities of how big companies simply turn the lower class away and steer toward the young students who have had "privileged" backgrounds.
Class is an issue which is rather close to my heart. I can talk about myself and compare against the people who were being focused in the documentary. Being born and raised in an place, I can say is a respectable area in Cardiff, the environment which I was raised in varies. We have people who have occupations such as financial advisers and local GPs who are content with their local jobs. Some on the other hand are less honoured. They never attended University and spend their daily lives scanning food everyday in Tesco.
My parents I can admit aren't the richest in the world. One's a builder, the other being an engineer. Both have done fantastic to get to where they are today and both are loving their jobs. They want me to be happy as well, live every parent has to be with their child.
I went to a "normal" high school. I didn't go to a comprehensive, I didn't go to a private or state school. I went to Cathays. It's a high school which I am proud to have attended. I know, when I first left I said "I survived the five years and glad I escaped, woo!"
But I look back and I can say to myself "I've gone out of high school with decent grades which will take me places". I then went to college which was again, considered "normal". I never went to a place of education where I needed to wear a tie, let's put it this way. During these years in secondary and further education made me realise how important it is to get a "decent" job and make a living. However, being a teenager in the 21st Century is difficult.
More young people are getting increasingly ambitious and all want the same jobs that a lot of people want. It's a competitive world out there regardless of the profession.
My dream is to become a journalist, one profession which was in the spotlight during this documentary I watched. One person which was on the spotlight was a man named Girish who studied Physics had an ambition in becoming a journalist...
Wait, stop right there. A physics student wants to be a journalist? It does make sense but there are people such as myself studying a Journalism degree, surely shows the profession I hope to get after completing their degree. I became even more angry when this physics student tried for every internship for journalism and at the same time decided to do a Masters... in physics. Not journalism, but physics. In order to become a journalist, you need previous experience before saying to a professional journalist "I'm not getting paid and doing the same job as you".
It's an internship. Yes, it's frustrating that Girish wasn't getting much luck in the journalism industry but at the start he wasn't looking for places outside London. In order to get to London, you don't necessarily have to START in London. He's now in Mexico, trying to live his dream.
The documentary didn't specify Girish's experience other than doing various internships. Let's compare him to me. I'm doing two radio shows for Bangor University's radio station, I write blogs, I have written sport yearbooks which have been independently published, I have been to work placements with a magazine and PR company. Surely that, and I'm sure I will do more experience in the near future will help me in securing a journalism job. I am constantly practicing outside my degree time to gain all the experience I can get.
Another complaint which the documentary argued was that in order to get a job of your dreams is the amount of contacts people get. Contacts is important but now due to technology is not impossible. Being part of Twitter has made me express my views to the world which gets people listening and following me. It's only a start.
Let's get back to the topic of class. One possible setback for me is that I am a wannabe-journalist from Cardiff. Now can someone tell me a well-known journalist from Cardiff which they know of? Someone who has made it to the big time.
You can say that John Humphreys from the hit-quiz show Mastermind is from Cardiff. An area (Splott) which back when he was a teenager in the 1950s was dominated by ships and docks. Nothing like the area of Chelsea or Kensington today. But who else? No one comes to mind, apart from the footballers such as Ryan Giggs and the pop stars such as Charlotte Church.
Cardiff isn't well known for the media "giants", we have the local papers which are loved by the locals, and have BBC Wales main headquarters in Llandaf which attracts the audience of a national scale. The media world in Wales as a whole is starting to become popular and continues to do so as well but has a lot to catch up with the likes of London and Manchester.
Another problem. I'm studying at Bangor University. No harm in that, is it surely? It's a good University enough and I'm having the time of my life. However, it is not a "red-brick" University. Last year, I applied for the Guardian Student Awards which I felt I sent in strong written articles. When the nominations were announced, I realised why I was not nominated. Manchester University, Oxford, King's College London were among the winners and runners up of the awards. All of which are given the credit and honour of being top Universities in Europe. A Bangor student such as I would not stand a chance.
What I'm trying to say here is that employers in journalism field go by reputation of the environment which people such as I have been used to for all these years. In my case, not great but not bad either but that's probably me being increasingly optimistic.
I'm not an academic genius. I'm not an A student but why does that have to stop me getting where I want to be? It's not about "class" in that respect, it's got to do with confidence of the individual and the will to succeed. I believe I have that I have the will and ambition and plan to prove the upper-class snobs of Eton, Oxford and Cambridge who went to posh and snooty schools that there are people who are considered the opposite to them who can succeed and can attempt to shorten the gap between the upper and lower class.
Rant over.
Class is an issue which is rather close to my heart. I can talk about myself and compare against the people who were being focused in the documentary. Being born and raised in an place, I can say is a respectable area in Cardiff, the environment which I was raised in varies. We have people who have occupations such as financial advisers and local GPs who are content with their local jobs. Some on the other hand are less honoured. They never attended University and spend their daily lives scanning food everyday in Tesco.
My parents I can admit aren't the richest in the world. One's a builder, the other being an engineer. Both have done fantastic to get to where they are today and both are loving their jobs. They want me to be happy as well, live every parent has to be with their child.
I went to a "normal" high school. I didn't go to a comprehensive, I didn't go to a private or state school. I went to Cathays. It's a high school which I am proud to have attended. I know, when I first left I said "I survived the five years and glad I escaped, woo!"
But I look back and I can say to myself "I've gone out of high school with decent grades which will take me places". I then went to college which was again, considered "normal". I never went to a place of education where I needed to wear a tie, let's put it this way. During these years in secondary and further education made me realise how important it is to get a "decent" job and make a living. However, being a teenager in the 21st Century is difficult.
More young people are getting increasingly ambitious and all want the same jobs that a lot of people want. It's a competitive world out there regardless of the profession.
My dream is to become a journalist, one profession which was in the spotlight during this documentary I watched. One person which was on the spotlight was a man named Girish who studied Physics had an ambition in becoming a journalist...
Wait, stop right there. A physics student wants to be a journalist? It does make sense but there are people such as myself studying a Journalism degree, surely shows the profession I hope to get after completing their degree. I became even more angry when this physics student tried for every internship for journalism and at the same time decided to do a Masters... in physics. Not journalism, but physics. In order to become a journalist, you need previous experience before saying to a professional journalist "I'm not getting paid and doing the same job as you".
It's an internship. Yes, it's frustrating that Girish wasn't getting much luck in the journalism industry but at the start he wasn't looking for places outside London. In order to get to London, you don't necessarily have to START in London. He's now in Mexico, trying to live his dream.
The documentary didn't specify Girish's experience other than doing various internships. Let's compare him to me. I'm doing two radio shows for Bangor University's radio station, I write blogs, I have written sport yearbooks which have been independently published, I have been to work placements with a magazine and PR company. Surely that, and I'm sure I will do more experience in the near future will help me in securing a journalism job. I am constantly practicing outside my degree time to gain all the experience I can get.
Another complaint which the documentary argued was that in order to get a job of your dreams is the amount of contacts people get. Contacts is important but now due to technology is not impossible. Being part of Twitter has made me express my views to the world which gets people listening and following me. It's only a start.
Let's get back to the topic of class. One possible setback for me is that I am a wannabe-journalist from Cardiff. Now can someone tell me a well-known journalist from Cardiff which they know of? Someone who has made it to the big time.
You can say that John Humphreys from the hit-quiz show Mastermind is from Cardiff. An area (Splott) which back when he was a teenager in the 1950s was dominated by ships and docks. Nothing like the area of Chelsea or Kensington today. But who else? No one comes to mind, apart from the footballers such as Ryan Giggs and the pop stars such as Charlotte Church.
Cardiff isn't well known for the media "giants", we have the local papers which are loved by the locals, and have BBC Wales main headquarters in Llandaf which attracts the audience of a national scale. The media world in Wales as a whole is starting to become popular and continues to do so as well but has a lot to catch up with the likes of London and Manchester.
Another problem. I'm studying at Bangor University. No harm in that, is it surely? It's a good University enough and I'm having the time of my life. However, it is not a "red-brick" University. Last year, I applied for the Guardian Student Awards which I felt I sent in strong written articles. When the nominations were announced, I realised why I was not nominated. Manchester University, Oxford, King's College London were among the winners and runners up of the awards. All of which are given the credit and honour of being top Universities in Europe. A Bangor student such as I would not stand a chance.
What I'm trying to say here is that employers in journalism field go by reputation of the environment which people such as I have been used to for all these years. In my case, not great but not bad either but that's probably me being increasingly optimistic.
I'm not an academic genius. I'm not an A student but why does that have to stop me getting where I want to be? It's not about "class" in that respect, it's got to do with confidence of the individual and the will to succeed. I believe I have that I have the will and ambition and plan to prove the upper-class snobs of Eton, Oxford and Cambridge who went to posh and snooty schools that there are people who are considered the opposite to them who can succeed and can attempt to shorten the gap between the upper and lower class.
Rant over.
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