When I started journalism at Sunderland University, I was quite excited. I enjoy writing and I'm interested in the media, so it seemed to be the perfect course for me. Oh how wrong I was!

First of all, my first year was crammed with news values. It seemed that every single module I had I would learn about news values...to the point where I thought I would literally morph into a news value. It seemed so repetative and I began to get frustrated that I was paying over £3,000 a year to learn the same thing over and over again.

I was already in the frame of mind that I wanted to do magazine writing. In my first year though this was impossible. I didn't even get a sniff of a magazine, nevermind actually learning to write for one. Everything was "Sunderland Echo this..." and "Sunderland Echo that..." - forget any dream you had to write about anything other than Sunderland!

After finishing my first year, I decided that if I was to get any sort of feel for magazine writing, I would have to find it myself. So in the Summer, I applied for work experience at several magazines - most based in London. I was really pleased to be accepted for a two week placement at Closer magazine.

It was a really expensive trip, as I got no financial help with the company and I didn't know anyone in London. I had to stay in a hotel, and as you can imagine, any hotel in London for two weeks costs a bomb! To say I was a skint student that summer was would be an understatement!

Now half way into my second year, I thought things would be a bit different, as I chose to go down the magazine route. However, it was only in my second semester of this year that I started to actually do anything magazine related. Since I have though, I've enjoyed it a lot more. But for other students wishing to do Journalism at Sunderland, they could easily be put off in the first year and a half.

The final part of my rant is about shorthand. I find it irritating that we're constantly told we won't get a job anywhere if we don't have 100 words a minute in shorthand. We do four hours of it a week - but it counts for no credits! How is this fair? If anything, shorthand is the one subject I've had to apply my brain the most.

So if you're thinking of doing journalism at Sunderland, make sure you're patient and you like freezing weather by the river - but that's just my opinion.