Fellow Journalism students, covid-19 may have separated us but it can’t stop us from connecting! I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new Facebook group named ”2019/2020 Journalism MA, Griffith’’ for stay in touch while college is shut. With the creation of this group, it is my hope that it would outlive its purpose and be a medium to stay in touch after our programme.
There’s a backstory to the launching of this online community which I’ll love to share.
It has been 7 months since I made that bold decision to quit my job and jump on a plane to Ireland to start a new life as a student.
My trip to Ireland was different from others I’ve made.
Whenever I’m moving to a new country, I always try to read a lot about the country and watch YouTube videos just to be prepared, but not this time. Having lived in the UK before, I travelled to Ireland with the expectation that the culture would be the same. Boy, I was wrong!
I quickly discovered that Ireland is not the UK and the UK is not Ireland. Instead of hearing ‘‘innit’’ or ‘‘mate’’ in every conversation I heard a lot of ‘‘grand’’ during interactions with Irish folks or ‘‘what the fe^k’’ when they’ve had too much Guinness.
Since I got to Dublin, I’ve had to unlearn and relearn many things.
Being a student is challenging on its own but being an international student even makes it worse. You’re alone with no family and have a lot of adjusting to the culture.
But after a while, you meet a lot of international students who can relate with some of your struggles and you befriend many of them. In my case, I settled easily because 90% of the people on my course were foreigners who come from 5 different continents.
Suddenly, a pandemic comes, college is shut and you separate from people whom you have shared really good moments and connection with.
We’re now gradually approaching the end of academic sojourn, and I fear I might not see most of them physically again because of the lockdown. We’re even facing a prospect of a virtual graduation as no one knows when the health crisis would end.
It is for that reason I have decided to create the Facebook group. While this online community will be beneficial in the short term, in the long term it would be nice to have a platform where we can share job/training/internship opportunities or upcoming online events regardless of wherever we might be in the world.
This platform would also be a place to share any kind of our journalistic works and discuss anything of common interest to us.
I’ve made it open, so if you’re an international student and studying journalism, even if you’re not doing a masters or completing your programme this year, please feel free to click on this link below to join the group. Common guys!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/264409368066884/
