Carla Calimani studied French and Italian at Cambridge University. After gaining work experience abroad, she decided to take a postgraduate course in magazine journalism.
I’d always loved reading magazines, but I only thought about writing for them in my last year of university. I started writing for the student paper, and did work experience for women’s glossies during my holidays. After graduating I went to Australia for a year. There I persistently hassled the publisher of the only magazine in Canberra until he agreed to give me some freelance work. That developed into my first full-time job for a magazine, and I loved it.
When my One-Year Working Visa expired I returned to London, determined to pursue a career in magazine journalism. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a reality check when I realised how absolutely impossible it was to get into. There is a lot less competition down under!
I sent out hundreds of CVs, made phone calls and sent emails, but they didn’t get me much further than a few stints of unpaid work placements. If I was lucky I got expenses. The prospect of doing work experience for the rest of my life was getting very depressing, so I decided I needed to do something to raise my employability.
I was accepted onto the PMA Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism, which I funded with the money I’d earned in Australia. It also helped that I lived with my lawyer boyfriend, who supported me financially during the course. The diploma was very short (nine weeks) and very intensive. We were taught everything from news and feature writing to subbing and layout. I felt much more confident about my abilities and a little more confident about my job prospects by the time it was over.
One of the course tutors put me in touch with the editor of Take a Break
magazine, who offered me freelance work. After a month I was given a full-time position as feature writer. I consider myself very lucky – within weeks of finishing my postgraduate course I had a salary and a job I enjoyed. Everyone who did the PMA Training course with me is now working in a magazine, so it must be doing something right.
