Ex-Student Success Stories

These former students from the London School of Journalism (postgraduate and short courses) stood out because of their exceptional personal qualities and attitude to their future. I hope they will inspire you. Their success stories are no surprise to me, and meeting them at the beginning of their careers or at a pivotal point in their lives was hugely exciting. (Since 2012 they’ve achieved even further success as you’ll see if you research them further. Feature writer and blogger Ann Morgan for example has since been a TED speaker and successful novelist.) I’ve described what they did right as students, whilst they’ve pinpointed what they learnt from me.

Here’s what I’ve learnt teaching journalism courses:

Not everyone who does a journalism course is cut out to be a journalist/writer. But there’s no better way of finding out whether it’s for you. (Take a short course first if you’re not sure.)
Journalism courses are great fun, change the way you consume media and show you a way to become part of the media even if you don’t want to be a full time journalist. The skills are transferable.
When the going gets tough on a course men tend to say: ‘Well, I don’t want to do this anyway, what I would be better at is….’
When the going gets tough on a course women tend to say: ‘I’m just not good enough…’
Students who won’t consider anything outside their dream titles or dream journalism area get disappointed and depressed.
Italian students are awesome. They are so motivated they are securing paid jobs in British media. And there aren’t many of them –jobs that is.
A lot of people who say they want to get published don’t want to get published. They want to be told they’re brilliant.
I won’t tell you that you’re brilliant. I’ll motivate you to show me that you are.