Last week, Amnesty International collaborated with the National Union of Students to bring student journalists an extensive and engaging media summit. The two day conference, held at Amnesty International headquarters, aimed to build and improve students’ journalism skills and prepare them for the next steps in their careers.

It featured workshops on getting to grips with newsgathering, adapting to different writing styles, the various forms of media jobs available, and the chance to grill a variety of journalists on their careers, experiences and opinions on the current state of the media.

The Q&A with NUS President Liam Burns gave us a taster of a press conference, where we had to quickly think on our feet and come up with some testing questions. The networking lunch gave the opportunity to converse with the professionals in a casual and laid back environment, which gave way for us receive down to earth and honest responses. The majority of the conference, especially the session with the Student Radio Association and the National Student Television Association were of great relevance, from advice on getting around interference from union and university officials, to tackling the challenges brought about by an increasing reliance on new and digital media.

However, although the vast majority of these speakers offered a wealth of information and heaps of useful advice to wannabes, I couldn’t help but feel some of the professionals were part of a completely different generation of journalists.

Many had entered their careers on graduate schemes and training programmes and had worked their way up to their high flying jobs on local newspapers with just a notepad, a pen and a curious nature. Today, most of these schemes are now redundant, all training includes an element of digital media, and some journalists have denounced the once essential skill of shorthand as redundant. How can they hope to inform us on how best to get a foot in the door of one of the most competitive industries when so much has changed since they first were in our shoes?

The core values of the conference gave us all some hope. With so few jobs around and many more graduates churning out of courses than positions, the rise of an internship culture and long periods of unemployment mean its pretty easy to get down about our careers before they have even begun.

Despite this, the summit personally cemented my aspirations in journalism. I learnt how to craft the perfect article pitch, how to engage people online with my blog and somehow found the balls to chat confidently to a number of successful journalists. Despite previously unimaginable changes to journalism and the vast improvements in technology providing both incredible opportunities and frustrating challenges, the core basics of journalism remain the same. For all of us, journalism presents a challenge to the establishment, a representative force for change, and “a platform for people airbrushed out of existence.” – Owen Jones.