How studying at UWE Bristol pushed me to my limits and changed my life

Moving to Bristol from Gibraltar was a trickier task: I had completed my undergraduate (the latter half online due to the COVID lockdowns) at Keele University in Staffordshire, and most of my belongings were at my old accommodation.

So the journey back to the UK began an early morning in Manchester, one of the closest airports to Keele, where my parents had rented a car to help me with the move.

After a stressful drive (my dad is used to driving on the right in Gibraltar) and saying goodbye to my old housemates, we arrived at Bristol very late at night where, after a few wrong turns, we found my new home for the year: an en-suite in "Marketgate", in the city centre.

I was disappointed at the size of the room. Back in my first university accommodation at Keele, it had been at least double the size for much cheaper, which was the first insight into how much more expensive Bristol is.

It had a lot of storage, and after playing Tetris, I could fit all my belongings. I had lucked out on the accommodation and only had to share the kitchen/living space with two other people rather than five.

Another big change was travelling to campus. Keele is a campus university where all the buildings are quite close together, whilst UWE is a city campus so more travel was involved to reach the Arnolfini and Bower Ashton where my course was based.

Google Maps was my best friend during the journey until I learnt that my course mate Riham lived in the next-door accommodation, so we would travel together on the bus. Later on, I would also meet a new close friend - who I'm semi-regularly in touch with -, Kino, during the journey to class.

The most distinct memory from the first week of the course was being "sent off on the wild" in search of a news story from Arnolfini by our lecturer Chris.

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I paired up with Valentina (who was an instant friend once we learnt we both came from Spanish-speaking countries), Luke and Mimi and learnt from a member of Friends of Castle Park how disturbingly watched visitors are by the cameras, before enjoying a quick refreshment at the Vaults Café and starting the longer journey back to Bower Ashton to share our findings.

That was only a snippet of what was to come. One of the best - and most stressful - parts of the course was the practical elements: newsdays.

Each week we were paired up and were once again "set off in the wild" and had to bring a Bristol news story and relevant footage for the day. We were based at Bower Ashton radio and TV studio and would need to produce a collaborative programme.

Every session, the room was hectic and more often than not, I would unintentionally skip lunch to meet the deadline.

We were thrown on the deep end, but it prepared us to be ready for the industry standard and it was really satisfying seeing the final product at the end of the day.

After the stressful day, we would head off to a pub, one of my favourite traditions of the course.

Looking back, studying for a master's was a lot harder than anticipated. It was difficult to find a balance between the course and having somewhat of a social life, but I wouldn't change a thing.

Despite being a stressful course, it was very engaging and a lot of fun. I learnt a lot, felt much more prepared to enter the industry and even pathed the path of opportunities that led to my current job.

Plus, I was able to share it with a wonderful group of people who I learnt a lot from and made memories that I will always cherish.

Overall, studying at UWE was one of the most stressful experiences I've had but it was also life-changing in the best of ways.