St Mary’s Student Completes Work Experience with BBC

At the beginning of the academic year, a student from St Mary’s University, Twickenham, completed a work experience placement at the BBC in Southampton. Yasmin Ryder, a second year Film and Screen Media student at the University, told us about her experience at the BBC and what she learnt.

During her week at the BBC, Yasmin was able to shadow each department to see how a busy newsroom operates on a day-to-day basis. Whilst working in the newsroom, Yasmin worked with the news desk on stories that were being covered that week. Yasmin also spent time with the technical team in the television studio and gallery, and was able to observe live broadcasts in the studio.

Yasmin worked with the Picture Editors & Graphics Team, which meant that she was able to spend time on the road, with a reporter and crew, to see how the BBC operates in the field. During this experience, Yasmin was given the opportunity to make a brief appearance on ‘BBC South Today’.

She was also able to shadow the BBC Radio Solent Team, the News Online team, and the Digital Video Department as they were preparing content for the BBC website, and other platforms. Speaking of this, Yasmin said, “I found this particularly eye opening as I was able to see the specific demographic breakdowns for their online audience and their interaction levels.”

Yasmin’s highlight of the week was working alongside the Digital Video team, where she edited two stories that were distributed to the BBC News website and the BBC South social media accounts. It was here that Yasmin learnt how to edit using Final Cut Pro, as well as the BBC text templates.

In a quote, Yasmin said: “I made sure that throughout my week, I made the most of the exciting opportunities I was given, and really made myself known within the team. I asked lots of questions, which allowed me to form contacts for future work experience and opportunities.”