I want to be a writer…

More specifically, I want to be a science writer.

Neither of those two sentence s come across well in front of a careers advisor. They conjure up awkward questions like “what have you written?” and “how much work experience have you got?”

Unfortunately my answers are the same as everyone else’s: a few things if the student papers and little, bordering on none. This does nothing to help me stand out from the crowd.

And so I am now trying to write for anything that’ll take me. Blogs, mini-articles, really long articles. Anything and everything. My portfolio is, gradually, expanding; although the veiw count on my blog remains embarrassingly low.

It is that coveted journalism work placement that I am after. And now it is crunch time. In just over six months, I will no longer be an undergraduate.  A terrifying thought. By CV is remarkably bare, and I haven’t updated it for over a year.

But all is not lost. The internet, as always, has come up trumps. I read an aarticle written by a man named Ed Young, in which he told how he and his coworkers  became science writers. Their routes were widely varied and, in many cases, circuitous. Some took formal training, others had had no previous experience  writing. Many took years to get a steady job, others landed one straight from university. Very few of the writers managed to live perfectly to the life plans that they made aged 18.

This is the point I’m trying to make. It doesn’t matter where you are now, as long as you are focused on where you want to be. Don’t make a set and steady plan for yourself, having a few goals and targets is good, but life is not predictable.

And, most importanly, keep updating  that CV, you never know when you’ll next get a chance to send it off.

Published grads.co.uk September 2012