Who is/wants to be a journalist?

Since many people have posted about actually being in the media and at uni,
since I have a university assesment day in BA Journalism on Tuesday I was wondering, what do universities, print and broadcasters look for in a person to to decide what potential a student / prospective employee will have?

Most people I've come in to contact with prefer a degree in any subject with a Journalism post grad, or doing it the traditional way of just getting stuck in for real and learning on the job.

No he does.
http://www.gorillaenterprises.co.uk/upload/uploadFiles/mtaudience4.jpg

I will be applying soon into the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University in the US. I intend to work at a broadcast journalist.

BTW, this is a report I did recently about a local science exihibit. Can you guys tell me how I did?

Click Here

I think that is a great performance, when you were looking at the camera, it looked like you were looking down on the camera though. I bet you'll get into journalism school no doubt with a news package sample like that.

Do any of you guys at University, or who are applying this year have any idea of any good Uni's for English or Journalism? I've been looking at Cardiff, it seems to have a good reputation.
I know I'm probably not intelligent enough to get into one of the top 3, but I really would love to go to Durham.

I used the NCTJ course list and did some looking at the courses which suited my needs, then applied to five which is a good number to apply for according to UCAS. Open days are also a good way of finding out information too, and emailing the institution for details are encouraged.

I was advised by many journalists themselves, not necessarily to do a course that is NCTJ or BJTC accredited. My Journalism course at Stirling is not accredited by either, and this allows them to implement their own programme of learning which works better for students, rather than having to adhere to a strict outline from the NCTJ and BJTC. I would highly recommend Stirling for its Film and Media department, and for English too.

A journalist gave me this advice to pursue a journalism career, "Stick with school and do well. Go to uni and get a traditional degree and then do attend a broadcast journalism course(post-graduate) or something. "

I can't remember exactly. That's pretty good advice I'd imagine. Anyone want to add to that or share their own success?

That's pretty well what the majority of people in the industry will tell you. You won't go far wrong with that advice.

Regarding the first sentence, there, now you know why I had a go about your grammar.

Sorry, but I must be an absolute hypocrite, and say, gramm a r

I understand that I'll have no chance but at GCSE English I haven't got much critism towards the grammar in my coursework so don't have much chance of developing a better knowledge of grammar in English.

If you want to be a journo, then I suggest you learn how to spell first - or check your work for typos before submitting it - it's 'pursue' not 'persue'. Honestly, how can you possibly expect to become a professional writer if you make this sort of schoolboy error?

I know that, as a broadcast journalist, your prose is more likely to be spoken than seen as text, but a lot of broadcast journalists these days start their careers as text producers on news channels, spending hours at a time typing out story captions and tickers - and I can assure you that when you are performing this role, elementary spelling mistakes that end-up being broadcast live on-air don't go down at all well with the bosses!