My quest to get hired at the BBC: A not-so-successful (journalistic) start

London, England.

Buckingham Palace.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

The London Bridge.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

View of the Shard from the Tower of London.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

It’s the city where, according to my mom, “All it ever does is rain.”

It’s also home to the British Broadcasting Corporation, known more commonly as the BBC, my dream employer.

So what does a journalism grad with only a few years of post-grad experience do to turn that dream into a reality?

I’m hoping my 28 day trip to London will help me figure that out.

I’ve put a lot of planning into this trip. Almost a year before I even got on the eight hour and 50 minute flight, I had to sit down and make a budget. Considering the exchange rate at the time, the plummeting loonie, dropping oil prices and an overall poor economic outlook, budgeting was not the most fun of tasks.

After crunching the numbers, it was clear. I had to work… a lot. Between two part-time jobs and freelancing, I earned enough money to buy a round-trip ticket, rent a flat, and buy groceries and other basic necessities for the month.

You’d think someone with my Type A personality would be set for smooth sailing the day of my flight. Maybe, if real life weren’t a thing. I was a stress case the night before, worried I’d forget something important, or that something would come up that would put my plans to an abrupt halt. Instead, I just woke up with the typical symptoms of the common cold.

Despite immediately and diligently taking medicine, including Emergen-C, Cold-FX Extra and DayQuil, nothing helped, and at 6:30 p.m. I boarded the plane feeling a lot less than stellar, despite the fact that I’d very soon be in the city where my dreams could potentially come true.

After surviving the very full, very cramped, very-little-legroom-available flight, I landed in Gatwick, made it through almost 45 minutes of waiting in a line to prove I wasn’t a threat to the country, and got into the cab to my flat.

I managed to only fall asleep twice on the drive there, and stayed awake for the entire tour and quick run-through of basic London living. Then I went to sleep, around 2 p.m. local time, and I didn’t wake up feeling any better that evening, so I went back to bed.

The next day I tried to start my first full day in the city off by going big, but I just ended up getting very dizzy and returning home after about 15 minutes. My second and final trip outside that day was to the grocery store, to stock up on all the cold fighting essentials possible. It was also the first time I’d been asked for ID when buying over-the-counter drugs. According to my good friend Google, some medicines have ingredients that are used to make methamphetamines, so stores have to keep track of who buys how much here. The more you know…

Some basic supplies picked up to battle the cold.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

After two days of being almost completely useless, I decided I was sick of being sick, and it was time to suck it up and start doing things.

I managed to have a packed first week, which started off with a visit to St. Paul’s Cathedral, included making friends with a couple of lovely Austrians while waiting in line to meet a local band, visiting a few different green spaces in central London, checking out multiple museums, and, in pure tourist fashion, heading to Big Ben and Buckingham Palace.

St. Paul's Cathedral.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

St. James Park.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

Big Ben.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

Gates at Buckingham Palace.
Photo by Yasmin Jaswal

And as it turns out, my mom was actually wrong (that never happens, like, ever, so I was pretty shocked). The first five days of my visit were abnormally warm, with temperatures sticking in the high 20s and low 30s, and the sun constantly shining. It only "rained" in my area once all week, and even that was almost too light to count. 

Despite fighting a cold for the past 10 days, my first week was overall quite successful from a tourist point of view. When it comes to getting any closer to the dream job though, I have some (okay, lots) of work to do. I might have to revert back to my original plan of sitting outside BBC headquarters for hours every day and talking to everyone who goes in and out of the building until someone finally gives me an interview. The only downside with that plan is instead of an interview I might get kicked off the premises by security... for good. 

For now, let's just hope the next post is more fruitful in terms of my journalistic endeavours.

If you want even more from my trip, be sure to follow my Instagram and Twitter accounts.