I am now a Journalism student. Yes, really!

First off, I'd like to apologise for the long absence. It's been a crazy whirlwind few months what with getting married, moving house and leaving my job to follow a lifelong dream.

As you may (or may not) have heard, I am now a journalism student. A few months ago I decided to quit my seemingly secure lifestyle to pursue a dream I've had since I was about 12 years old.

Of course my first concern was "how on earth am I going to fund this?!" The course fees coupled with extortionate travel costs meant I either had to have a lot of money saved up (not likely with a wedding coming up), take out a loan to fund it (where would I even begin to pay that back?) or, failing all, sell my belongings. I can't say I have anything of so much value.

I raised this concern to a tutor at Lambeth College when I went in for my pre-entry exam. What he told me would be the catalyst in helping me to pursue this seemingly impossible dream.

The Journalism Diversity Fund is an NCTJ-run charity which helps those from a diverse backgrounds with cost as a major deterrent to fund their journalism studies. One look at the application form and I almost gave up before I'd even started. It was, by far, the most difficult application form I have ever filled out.

Filling it out was the best thing I did though (it took me the best part of a month to complete it fully including writing a piece for a publication, which had to be included as part of the application form). Thanks to Dominic Ponsford at Press Gazette, not only did I get a published piece to include in the application, but also received a glowing recommendation - this, coupled with a documentary I worked on with BBC Radio Leicester on Asian weddings (thanks to the ever kind Kamlesh Purohit), I believe helped seal my chances of securing an interview.

The interview - possibly one of the most nerve-racking and difficult interviews I have attended, not least because of the panel! The questions were mainly an extension of the application form (why do you want to be a journalist, how will you bring diversity to the newsroom, etc) but I was so nervous, I felt I'd pretty much blown it after I came out.

I was on my honeymoon when I received the call from the lovely Lisa Nelson (a whole day earlier than I was expecting) - I was going to be awarded a bursary!! Not only was the JDF going to cover the cost of my fees, it was also going to help with my travel expenses. I was a woman who had just won the lottery! Cost was pretty much the only thing which was going to stop me from doing this course and the JDF had taken that huge weight off my shoulders. Now I could focus fully on making the most of it without worrying about the cost!

The Course

Since I graduated back in 2008, my life has been an unending stream of jobs and experience in the world of work, so, admittedly, at age 28, the past week at Lambeth College has been a bit of a shock to the system.

Having 'free' (read: study) time is possibly the most difficult thing I have had to get used to. The pressure and intensity was never going to be a problem given my history in PR, but it's making the most of the free time that I have found to be the most challenging aspect of studying again. I have always admitted to being completely undisciplined when it comes to studying by myself. Put me in an office and pile on the work, and my brain instinctively knows where to start and what to prioritise. Put me in a library with three hours of free time, and I struggle to know where to start!

The course at Lambeth is intense, to say the least. Day one started with a three hour lecture on Public Affairs and Ethics, and swiftly moved on to an afternoon of shorthand.

Ahh shorthand. If any of you have attempted (or indeed know) shorthand, you will know that it soon becomes the bane of your existence. Not a day has gone by in the past week that I haven't taken my notepad out to practice, practice, practice. My shorthand tutor is fairly strict (understandably so) and has basically told us we have no hope of getting the 100wpm required to get the NCTJ gold standard if we don't do at least two hours of practice a day outside of class time. Every. Single. Day.

Compared to the one lecture a week we have for all our other modules, shorthand takes up the majority of the week with a class of at least an hour long (usually more) every day - that's how much emphasis they place on it!

Saying that, at the end of week one, we all know so much more than we did a week ago. So my advice to anyone studying this course and shorthand - keep at it! Have two notebooks (one for class notes and the other for relentless practice), plus an additional small book for 'special forms' (common words which are represented by single symbols) and practice, practice, practice! It's not something you can cram and it doesn't matter if you have an IQ of 160 - if you don't practice, you won't reach the speed.

Speaking of which - I'd better go...practice!