The podcast creation is work that the students have undertaken with a company called Shoo Social Media, who has welcomed them for work experience opportunities. Kate McNaughton and Fran Haigh, both third year BA (Hons) Media, Communication and Cultures students and Ella Berry, a third year BA (Hons) English Literature student. 

All three students have taken different paths in gaining work experience with Shoo Social Media. Fran made contact with them directly from the Media Professionals’ Workshop module; Ella Berry via the Career Cartographies module; and, most recently, Kate via attending the ‘Build Your Experience’ careers week, where she followed-up with Shoo to ask for work experience. 

Kate said, “I love it! I’m leader of the Podcast team and work with the PR team, mostly as a spokesperson for the podcast. I was given this project due to my personality and confidence and I’ve always been interested in both production and presenting and this was the perfect opportunity for me to get this experience which I was very excited about. This experience compliments my course, it’s one thing to be taught about the industry and understand the subject from a theoretical perspective, but it’s another to get real industry experience. I know that in terms of employability, this experience will help me to appeal more to employers.”

The three students host the podcast together and the first podcast includes discussions about their opinions on postgraduate life, graduate schemes, jobs, masters, and Covid-19 and how this is impacting them during their final year as undergraduate students. To listen to their first podcast and subscribe, click here. They are really excited about the topics they can discuss and where the podcast could go in the future. The next podcast is with Paul Dodd from ALLGOOD branding agency who was invited to chat about his branding expertise and his successful career. 

Rachel Hatfield, Chief Operations Officer at Shoo Social Media said, “The students have been brilliant and working remotely which is these challenging times it is hard to build a team but they have been brilliant self-starters, the have really used their initiative and have got involved with our team here at Shoo, with some coaching/mentoring they have been an excellent asset to the team.”

Fran, who is currently on an internship at Shoo Social Media advises, “If you are ever given the opportunity to gain some work experience in the industry you want to pursue, I would highly recommend taking that opportunity. I continued my experience with Shoo, thinking it would be a summer project, one year on and I've gained so much more valuable experience, connections and knowledge. You never know where work experience may take you, and experience is so important for gaining assets on your CV.”