Year 10 Allendale East Area School student Madison Gavin spent a week undertaking work experience in The SE Voice office. We asked her to report in on what she achieved during the week.

I’m Madison Gavin, I’m 16 years old and I have an interest in writing and reading.

From September 26 to 30 I was required to do work experience by my school.

I chose to do my work experience at The SE Voice newspaper because it relates to my interests in literacy and I was recommended to go.

I got paired up with their cadet journalist Brandi Miller and she was required to show me the ropes.

From her, I learned how important gaining and keeping contacts is in the field of journalism.

You can get access to things to write about easier if you are good with people.

I also learned I need to plan out what stories I’m reporting on for the week and beyond (if I get into journalism) and how to go about those activities.

There is a lot more to journalism than I initially thought there was.

I believed it was just a situation where you got approached to do a story on a certain topic and had to write about it.

It would then either go into a newspaper or be posted online.

I went on a few place visits with Brandi, watched her work and helped take photos but we were mainly in the office for the
week.

When we were in the office, I helped Brandi edit some of her drafts and come up with new words when she was stuck on what to change.

I also got to do some writing of my own as I was given an article writing task where I had to find six topics and write a few paragraphs on each topic.

The best parts of the week would have been seeing the horse and cart when we went to the Mil Lel showground to visit and getting to write is always fun too.

I enjoyed this experience as it was something different and I feel like I learned a lot out of it that will help me if I want to further my career in journalism if I chose that career path.

I would do this experience again if I had the chance to as I learned a lot from my week at The SE Voice.