Free TV Licence, Please

We were given the chance to listen to a lecture given by Callum Peters and Alexander Jones.

Similar to Scott Duffey, they also attended the University of Chester which makes it all the more intriguing and close to home. Sometimes when you hear about people's stories from another place it is hard to imagine yourself in their position so it was nice to be able to relate to some extent.

Callum took the 'classic' approach of enjoying a certain subject in school, in his case design. From this he decided to go to the University of Chester to study graphic design. During his time at university he was creating advertisements for an independent magazine but it got quite tiring as repetitive. He then went on to work for AKQA who produced work for Fiat and Nissan. However this was cut short due to being made redundant. Although, this lead him to land the job of UX Designer at BBC Salford.

"UX or User Experience Designer is where a person's main role is to create/ offer a great experience for its user. This is honing in on the target market's needs and generating ideas on how to solve their problems. One could be making an software colour blind friendly or just making it easier to use for the older generation."

Alexander on the other hand took a different route. Unlike Callum he wasn't the best in school so didn't have that stand out passion for a certain subject. Instead of going to university straight away he got himself a job at Alton Towers. Although he liked his job he knew it wasn't something he would want to do for the rest of his life so when the ride closed, he decided to go to the University of Chester to study Computer Science. Once Al graduated he landed himself the job at BBC Salford.

Although neither of them have been in the office since March 2020 due to Covid-19 they still spoke about their favourite/proudest moments within the role. In a way it was nice to hear that it isn't just students who have been effected by the pandemic, it is everyone but we are all pushing through it and finding ways to get around the obstacles that come our way.

Peters said that his biggest moment was working on the set of Casualty when he first started at the company. This was very fun to hear about because every Saturday my Grandparents and I would watch Casualty with a hot chocolate... bought back some lovely memories.

Jones said that when he first started he was working on the 2012 Olympics which he said was nice to work on such a large scale for millions to watch.

We were also asked to join in with a little quiz that they has set up about general design and facts about the BBC. This was nice as it felt a lot more inclusive than just someone talking at us for a few hours so that was a nice addition to the lecture. I managed to get 12/18 correct which isn't too shabby.

Alexander joined the call late as he was busy with the new interns. Every year the BBC have a trainee scheme where they have thousands of applicants but whittle it down to 4/7 people who get to become an intern. With this he also announced that they will be opening recruitment next month... as in February so I better start cracking on.

I really enjoyed the activity that they included in their lecture. it kept us all listening and interested. It also helped break up all the information that we were taking in. Similar to Scott and Denise they also attended the University of Chester yet working for such a big company, this gave me so much motivation and hope for my future career.

Much love,

Abs x