Writing for Gair Rhydd has been one of the highlights of my second year at Cardiff University. I have loved being a Sports Editor for the paper, and meeting new people from the other media groups has been so inspiring. I have a lot of love for XPress, CUTV and Quench Tomos and Ben from CUTV and Xpress have really shown me how much media means to me from CUTV socials to C-Plan premieres, I have done it all. Above everything Gair Rhydd has really given me the opportunity to write about my love for sports in particular football.
The student media office has been such a big part of getting to talk to people about their passions, opinions, and beliefs which I have found so insightful. Aberystwyth University visited us in late January and it was so interesting to learn about their paper Mouth of the Ystwyth and to talk to them about balancing writing for the paper alongside their degrees. In particular Ella, Hope, and Narayan gave me some great advice which I took on board when taking the photographs for our last edition. As a Media and Comms student I will always value the people at JOMEC so much. I have made some friends for life and seeing the people I love succeed makes me so happy. I have enjoyed putting everything theory-based that I have gained from my degree into practice at the newspaper, which has really made me believe that my career is going in the right direction. Getting the chance to have this experience was so important because I want to use my position in the paper to talk more about mental health in the sports industry. Now that I am the new Mental Health Officer at Cardiff University I want to meet with Sports Societies’ well-being officers and talk to them about everything I know about mental health and gain an insight into their roles. My favourite thing about the paper has definitely been Welsh Varsity. I had the time of my life with the Canon DSLR camera, taking photos the whole day and writing about the Cardiff University football team. I would like to say a huge thank you to Giles Basson, the captain of the team, for the interview. It has given great sports comms knowledge for the future. With this position at Gair Rhydd I was given the opportunity to get work experience in the press gantry at Cardiff City football Club which has been a dream come true and by far an experience of a lifetime and I would like to say a huge thank you to the Head of Communications Mark Denham for all the support.