The STS NewsRoom is the department’s largest summer studentship programme. We organise the NewsRoom to function as close to a real-world magazine setting as possible.
Our student journalists create their own stories, delivering articles of quite different types. Written pieces are submitted for Alchemy, STS’s annual magazine that reaches more over 1,000 readers, especially teachers. They interview, investigate, discover, write, and re-write. They are challenged to edit articles to fit for length, focus, and audience. They are challenged to locate images and supporting materials, too. You’ll see the results in our next issue of Alchemy.
STS NewsRoom students also create content for WeAreSTS, our podcast to showcase research and the ideas we think are critical. Students create one episode on a topic of their own choosing, together with supporting material. Their work involves every element of podcast production, from storyboarding to final edits and sound effects. These are released as BONUS episodes in the WeAreSTS series.
Was it worth it?
Here’s what one of our student journalists said about the STSNewsRoom experience:
“Working with the STS Newsroom was one of the biggest highlights of the past year for me, and I really feel like I’m walking away from this internship with more skills and greater confidence. I was nervous about recording a podcast as I’d never done something like this and am not the most confident speaker, but I can honestly say that I really enjoyed the process and am looking forward to (hopefully) working on similar projects in the future. It was great to be part of such a fantastic team.”
Get involved
Calls for applications to work in the STS NewsRoom normally circulate after Reading Week of Term 2. These studentships are open to UCL students (undergraduate and post-graduate alike) with some element of STS in their training, such as one module taught by the department.
If you want to find out more, contact either Dr Jean-Baptiste Gouyon or Professor Joe Cain.
