By Johanna Fenton (Learning Technologist – Curriculum Development)
The permanent shift to home working for many businesses and organisations, including within the media industry, meant it became increasingly tough for Journalism students to find work placements during the 2020 lockdown.
To ensure students would have access to opportunities, Suzanne Nelson (Lecturer in Journalism) and Joanne Hine (Senior Lecturer in Journalism) set up a communications agency to meet the need for real-world student work placements during the Covid-19 pandemic. Running their own agency meant that staff could provide their students with directly relevant and high quality experiences that they might not otherwise have achieved on an intern placement.
This short video (click link to view on Panopto in a new tab) gives an overview of the Uni-Comms story.
At the Festival of Learning 2021, Suzanne and Joanne explained how they went about setting up their agency and the reasons behind it, then shared some of the success stories that came out of the communications agency, as well as reflections and experiences of the students that took up their placements through the Uni-Comms agency.
The full recording is available to view on Panopto (click link to view in a new tab).