Welcome to Warwick, and student media

Freshers, welcome. Everyone else, welcome back! It’s a new year at Warwick, and a new term filled with stuff to get your teeth stuck in to.

Besides the wonders of academic excellence that Warwick has to offer, student media here at Warwick have a lot of exciting things planned for this year that you should definitely get involved in, whether you’re a returning student or starting afresh.

First of all, there’s us – the _Boar_! We’re the official newspaper for the University of Warwick, and we write about all sorts of issues important to students, from reports on increases in fees to the hottest trends on campus.

We publish a newspaper every two weeks that’s distributed all over campus, and update our website theboar.org whenever we can. We have sections for travel writing, music reviews, comment pieces and in-depth features.

We organise trips to journalism-related activities and live-blog events across campus. If you’ve got an opinion on something, we want to hear about it. Students provoke debate, that’s what we do.

Radio Warwick, our own radio station better known as RaW, broadcast on 1251AM across campus and online. They showcase Warwick talent, featuring a mix of music, news, sport and general chit chat from a range of students.

They broadcast live on the piazza on open days and arrivals weekend, so perhaps you’ve seen them blaring chart music at you on your way to your halls today. RaW also produce a Varsity special, broadcast live from Battle of the Bands and collaborate with WTV on the Students’ Union elections.

WTV also cover the SU Summer Party where they meet and interview fab acts such as Feeder and Ms Dynamite. They also film a range of news and documentary programmes, arts and culture clips and sports events throughout the year. At Warwick TV you can get involved in every stage of the production process, behind and in front of the camera, regardless of your experience level.

The newest addition to Warwick’s media hub is SIBE, who produce topical documentaries and engage on issues relevant to Warwick students and beyond. SIBE produce weekly live chat shows Monday Live and Breakout, getting a range of students involved in debate online. The team aim to bring to the front a new form of interactive broadcast media about anything happening on campus.

Warwick is renowned for its student societies, and it has among the most in the country. Aside from making new friends, societies give you a fantastic opportunity to do things you have never done before.

Running around campus with cameras, microphones and pens will also be a brilliant way to practise the skills you will need in a career in the media. Whether you’re considering jobs in film editing, as a theatre critic or a have aspirations to become a Radio 1 producer, Warwick’s media societies can help prepare you and give you advice on how to get there.

We can give you training on a range of programmes and equpiment, provide opportunities to visit places such as the Press Association, enter the Guardian Student Media Awards, or simply just offer some constructive feedback on your work.

Got a passion for advertising and business? Join our sales team, selling online and print advertising to a range of companies. Love fixing technology and fiddling around with cameras? Join our engineering departments and fiddle with gadgets to your hearts content.

We can also help you develop a portfolio ready to jump into the world with; being able to present a front page exclusive story or have examples of a documentary you’ve put together is exactly what employers want to see from graduates. Student media gives you the chance to experiment, get it right (and wrong) and to learn from it to prepare yourself for a future career.

Contacts are also useful whatever career you’re considering, but we make great company at the pub too, and hold incredibly long, drunken bar crawls across Leamington.

Get involved in Warwick’s media societies. We’re fun, yet serious, we have a laugh and – when we (accidentally) delete the files on deadline day, we have a cry too.

Check out the websites, send us an email or pop into our offices in SUHQ.