It seems that the biggest question asked of any student at university is “what next?”. For me, this question was posed part way through the third and final year of my Undergraduate degree, and my only response was uncertainty. I had spent so long focusing on passing my degree that I had spared no thought about what came next. I was competing a degree in English and Creative Writing, which left many paths open to me. Did I want to be a Journalist, a writer, a teacher? Or attempt to get a training scheme with publishing companies or organisations such as the BBC or ITV? My thoughts were everywhere and nowhere all at once, all the while trying to focus on essays and exams.

Then, in one of my Dissertation meetings, my tutor asked me “what do you enjoy most?”.

It was such a simple question with a million possible answers, a million possible pathways. I had been so focused on other ventures that I had lost sight of what I actually enjoyed doing. After all, I had only chosen to do Creative Writing as a fun addition to my English degree. It was never meant to be taken any further. But this question encouraged me to pause, to sort through my chaotic thoughts and get to the root of my all-consuming enjoyment.

What did I enjoy most?

The answer, plain and simple, was creating fictional worlds. Writing has a specific power over the human population, and the majority of us enjoy the escapism that comes from reading about someone else’s life – real or otherwise.

I had always been fascinated by how these fictional scenarios can be realised on the stage, from a playwriting perspective, focusing on character interaction in an enclosed space. Scriptwriting takes this one step further, allowing a writer the freedom to place their characters in any scenario imaginable, without constraint and a reliance on the audience’s imagination.

I was completing a half-year course in Screenwriting at the time of this revelation, but this was focused entirely on theory. We never got the opportunity to actually make the films. Thus, my mind was drawn to furthering my study, to completing a Masters in Scriptwriting. This would allow me the freedom to properly network with other students, to create short films and radio dramas, to gain first-hand experience into how the media industry operates, and to see how all this can work on a micro budget.

As such, I thoroughly researched every pathway I could think of for this kind of study. I had always loved Bournemouth, and am now studying what I enjoy the most.