“There is a pressure with a three-year educational degree and University fees that can make you doubt your decision to not go straight into paid work”

It can be difficult to make the transition from university to a paid full-time job when taking Uni fees and how hard it is for journalists to get their name known. I spoke to Oliver Brindle, a sports journalism student in his final year who also works as a volunteer for BBC Sport to get his perspective on whether the transition is too difficult.

“A lot of people choose to go straight into journalism without a degree, but I chose not to because of what you can learn and the extra time and support you have at university and the way it prepares you for going into the workplace because future employers will know you understand the role due to your three years of education.

“When you start Uni and see others getting apprenticeships and full-time jobs, it can put doubt in your head as to whether it was better to follow them with what they are doing. I can seem to balance out overtime with the experience you get from going to university and it gives you an extra bit of time to understand the basics of journalism and learn from people who have been in the industry before you are thrown straight into the real world and a job.

“The actual feeling of going to university and having to pay fees that are increasing can put people off going and people might not want the pressure that once you graduate you will have to pay an expensive fee.

“There is also a pressure of feeling like you’re in a rush to get a job once you have graduated and have the future fees that you will need to pay back and put everything you have used into practice.

“There are a lot of people out there looking for jobs and there are not many out there, but I think is a slight bit of pressure, you pay a certain amount of money and a lot of it that the rising fees just add the extra bit of pressure that you don’t want for when you graduate.

“In terms of the accessibility of tools online like the fact you can create your own website and publish your own work on your personal portfolio and that is quite helpful, I would say though that trying to find interviews when you say you’re a University student people might look at you and think it is really worth speaking to you cause I might not get the reach from it. People also use social media like TikTok that traditional journalists didn’t get to use but we get the benefits of being able to showcase ourselves.

“In the long run AI will probably start to take jobs of people, like writing AI can do that, but I don’t think you will ever lose the aspect of a journalist going to someone and have a human conversation to make a story, for actual journalism AI can’t take you replace you but can help you.

“I saw and got told about the role at BBC Sport that came about because of Uni and applied. I got an email from them and decided to give it a go and work for them. It was a good decision because even though I wasn’t aware of whether it was paid or not but with the people and contact you meet and make can help you going forward in the industry.

“Opportunities will arise if people see that you’re putting in the work, I did some unpaid F1 stuff like doing race reports but doing that for a year allows you to take the hit of not being paid to get other opportunities, once you get it you just must work hard.

“There are like 10,000 views on the live blog they will not be looking at you but others in the industry will be and putting in that hard work and people seeing that will potentially help you move up the industry, it also helps to add skills and experience to your CV.”