PMA Postgraduate course interview

In spite of not getting any journalism job interviews, I’ve been to many interviews at temp agencies, which, for the most part have turned into massive circle jerks or counseling sessions, them not me – I had one tell me about her personal problems for over forty minutes. I figured that the PMA Post Grad course interview would be difficult, but not too difficult, as it would be me who would be paying. How wrong can one person be?

I went along for my grammar test and current affairs test, which I am not proud to say, I completely bombed. I had to correct a piece of text and I can’t explain why, but I just missed a very large proportion of the errors, leading the course head (more about him in a second) to suggest that I was incapable of constructing a grammatically correct sentence.

Next was the general knowledge test; another abysmal failure. I didn’t know where Colleen and Wayne were getting married, I didn’t know what horse race was on that weekend and nor did I know who had been signed to coach Mexico that week. Sadly I hadn’t taken Will’s advice to read the red tops that week.

Finally, I had the interview with Keith Elliot, the course head, who seems like a fairly straight talking, tough headed journalist, a gruff old man who was probably brought up in the school of hard knocks. He expressed shock, horror and dismay that someone with my atrocious spelling, grammar and knowledge of current affairs would dare even so much as attempt a career in journalism. He interposed this with stories about the success of his former students and how I was probably not going to get to be one of the privileged few. He sent me on my way, suggesting that I read English For Journalists and that he would let me know if I had a place on Saturday. Anyway, I came out of the interview more angry that I have been in a very long time. I was angry with myself for missing the errors, I was angry that despite everything I was probably back to square one, angry that this man had managed to rile me and most of all that I had probably messed up my chance to learn from him. To my surprise, he rang me on the Sunday offering me a place on the condition that my spelling and grammar improve. The course begins two weeks from now, I think I am becoming more conscious of how I put sentences together and not dashing them out like IMs or lazy emails.

There are still a number of things that I need to do before the course begins; including updating my CV, writing a 150 word autobiography (any suggestions?) and getting through the first 8 chapters of the teeline fast book.

I am not suggesting that this course is going to be a panacea but I do hope that in a few months I will wind up with a job that I love, and if not, at least I am continuing to work in the right direction, which is about a million times better than my present inert state of being.