During my last block of Writing Science in February, where we all received the marks for our magazine project, my lecturer was really complimentary about my groups’ magazine. So much so, that he brought up the idea of showing our magazine to his contacts at BBC Focus magazine.
I was really happy with that offer, and last week I got to take the proffered opportunity: I was able to spend 5 days at BBC Focus learning more about science magazines and how they’re put together. So, here’s how my week went…
Day 1
Heading into my first day, I was very nervous, mostly because I didn’t know what to expect or what they expected from me. I wasn’t sure whether they’d be expecting a complete beginner, or someone already knowledgeable. I was worried about being thrown in at the deep end, or doing tasks wrongly. However, I didn’t need to be too worried, as the team seemed friendly and the person in charge of keeping an eye on me was very nice- I was even ok asking him questions about the software by the end of the day.
My main task today was taking an essay written for next month’s issue, and laying it out as a set of pages for the print magazine. This was mostly placing and formatting the text, researching pictures and adding them, then putting them together into a readable page.
