I have just handed in my very last university assessment for the B.A. (Hons) Travel Journalism.

The assessment was to look at post-modern management at a World Heritage Site or other attraction. For mine, I chose Stonehenge, and created a website on which I can show my findings... very post-modern indeed.

Anyway, have a look at Managing Stonehenge to see what I found out.

Now that university is over, I can finally concentrate on the important things, like moving in with my other half and finding a job!

Oxford - what a great place! I only got to spend a weekend there, but I absolutely loved it! On my weekend break from Wanderlust, I had to move out of YHA Jordans, and decided to go to Oxford. New hostel, city centre location (unlike the "middle-of-the-forest" location of Jordans) and a place I've always wanted to go to.


I spent my first morning not in Oxford at all - instead I decided to drive down to Stonehenge for my assessment and have a look around at their managing techniques. But Oxford's pull was stronger, and the whole city, at least to me, more intriguing. The ancient buildings of the halls and colleges that make up the University of Oxford reflect the city's rich history, not only in architectural terms.


As a place of learning and knowledge, I shouldn't have been surprised by the amount of books in the Bodelian library or the amount of booksellers throughout the heart of the city. Over 6 million books! And my own university couldn't even maintain it's three miniature libraries in Carlisle...








Sunday morning I was up early. I was the very first person to climb Carfax Tower that day, even before it officially opened. Not advisable for people afraid of heights (narrow, steep spiral staircase, through which you can see the ground below) and asthmatics, the tower offers views over Oxford's city centre and its Dreaming Spires. 360° Panorama views of most of the colleges, churches, chapels, medieval buildings and the city bustling underneath make it worth it all, but I was glad when I was back on solid ground as I suffer from both problems outlined above. However, I'm also such a keen photographer that I tend to ignore them until I have to turn back down...

On nice days, punting on the Isis (as the Thames is called in Oxford) or on the Cherwell is recommended. There are walks along the rivers for those wishing to stay out of the water. Walking around the medieval college buildings, the Radcliffe Camera, Sheldonian Theatre, Bridge of Sighs is like stepping back in time. On the main shopping streets, 15th century houses lean into the streets. Many cafés are hidden away in back yards and alleys, although they really capture the atmosphere of the city. Students pouring over books and grabbing quick coffees to go.

Before I walked around Christ Church College (one of the most famous ones in Oxford), I treated myself to a G&D's ice cream. Although this Oxford ice cream parlour is not the cheapest, it is one of the best I've been told and I can testify they are pretty good! Christ Church College was amazing. To walk around the old buildings, the dining hall, the dorms, the cathedral on the grounds of the college ... and to think that students still study there, sleep in the same rooms as hundreds of students have done before them over the course of hundreds of years! I came close to transferring to Oxford University just for the sake of studying at a properly recognised uni that's well respected and established and history-ladden. Glancing up at the portraits of former students that hang on the dining hall walls, I just can't imaging UoC to ever be any competition. Full-gown dinners, taking exams in academic dress, honouring all the traditions there... just imagine!

When writing a dissertation, one thing that has to be included is a Literature Review.


I am currently writing mine, and it took me a while to figure out how exactly I should be going about it. I've read all the books, and I copied all the quotes and page numbers I need, but to then put everything down on paper and not go "He said this, and he said that" is quite tricky.


I got a brilliant piece of advice: Go book by book. Look at your quotes and notes, then close the book and write what you think it means, and what you noticed about it.


Once that is done, you can go back and look for themes, and mix and match your several pieces of reviews to turn it into one well-organised one.

My own, until now, goes something like this:

Photography plays a major role in what we perceive as gaze-worthy. The photos show us an “ideal” view, which we then try to find ourselves (Urry 1996: 86). These photographs help us form ideas about what a place will look like, what it is like there and what there could be to experience. Pictures are also used as proof, that a place really is as it was described. As Sontag (1979: 109) is quoted in Urry (1996: 139):

“Photography seems to be a means of transcribing reality. The images produced appear to be not statements of the world but pieces of it, or even miniature slices of reality. A photograph thus seems to furnish evidence that something did indeed happen – that someone really was there and that the mountain actually was that large. It is thought that the camera does not lie.”


I guess, depending on the amount of books you've read, it will take the better part of an afternoon or even day to write the review. But then again, it is a vital piece of the dissertation, so it shouldn't be rushed and it should be precise. You don't have to use all the quotes - you can use some in the later chapters of your dissertation, to make a point, for example.

Sorry for going on about my university, the University of Cumbria.

But this interview with my friend and course mate Stephen Graham made the front page of local newspaper News & Star today:

Cumbria university students claim they have been let down by lack of cash
By Thom Kennedy
Last updated at 13:34, Monday, 08 February 2010

Furious students from the University of Cumbria say they have been let down by a lack of investment in new facilities.

Plans to regenerate the city’s Viaduct Estate with a large £70m flagship university campus – including a theatre and arts centre for the city – have been put on hold because of financial problems.

That leaves students coming to Carlisle facing swingeing cuts to the university’s ambitious plans, including the dropping of some courses including law.

Final year journalism student Stephen Graham, 29, of Chatsworth Square in the city centre, said: “I started at the university in the first intake when it first formed, and over the three years the quality has degraded and I am glad to be leaving it now.

“Things like Brampton Road library closing have made it harder to study for my dissertation. It’s all very disappointing for students in Cumbria as they are going to have to travel away to go to university. It’s bad for the area.

“I feel really sorry for the next generation of students coming here. If I was going to stay on after I finish and do a Masters, I wouldn’t do it at the University of Cumbria. If it carries on the way it is, it’s going to implode.”
Steven Ramshay, of Kingstown Road, Carlisle is in his first year at the university, studying journalism. He said: “We were promised the library in Brampton Road, and we’ve been disappointed. I have been let down.
“It has turned out nearly the complete opposite of what I expected when I came to university. My sixth form college is better. The facilities available are very mediocre for a university.”

Recent MA graduate Kevin Murphy added: “They are reducing the facilities tremendously. Students will have signed up 12 months ago being promised a library and all these facilities, and now they are just reducing them.
“The library was a key part of the university as that’s where most of the research goes on.”

The Students’ Union launched a campaign last autumn to save the library when university bosses relocated it to Fusehill Street following a boost in student recruitment at the Brampton Road site.

Other students have expressed their anger at the university’s proposal to cut the law course next year, prompting a group of students to start a Facebook campaign to save the course. A plea to students reads: “The powers-that-be are proposing to axe the law degree at University of Cumbria after only two intakes of students.

“Why can’t we have a local university with prestigious degree courses like law in Carlisle? Why must we focus purely on agriculture, nursing or teaching? Why not have a wide range of courses to ensure local firms employ local people?”

Lecturers at the university’s Ambleside campus, which is set to be mothballed as a £2m cost-cutting measure, have refused to rule out strike action over the plans.

South Lakes MP Tim Farron, who is fighting to keep the Ambleside campus open amid the budget cuts, described a decision to allow outdoor studies students to continue using Ambleside as ‘a partial victory’.
However, he added: “I’m devastated for teacher training students who are still being asked to move, and for dozens of hard-working and long-suffering members of staff who may now face redundancy. Many who have given their life to the campus and to its generations of students face redundancy and an uncertain future.”

I just wanted to show you that it's not just me, who's complaining about the way this university handles things. But UoC is not the only university facing cuts. For more, read the article that was featured in The Guardian today!

...yeah, as if!

My third year at university has only just started, and already I feel kinda overwhelmed by the whole "Write your dissertation"-situation. I am trying to really put in a lot of effort this year, copying lecture notes, doing all the necessary reading etc. and I'm fine with that. But when it comes to my dissertation - the thing I've been working towards for the last 2 years - I don't know where to start.

I know what I want to write about. I'd love to compare different travel magazines and newspaper travel supplements and determine how their content, style, tone, symbolism, semantics relate to their readership. I want to look at it both from a journalistic point of view (ie styles etc.),but also from a marketing point of view; analysing how readers can be split up into different market segments, what would appeal to these segments and whether they overlap or not. Is there a segment missing? Then why is that? And do travel publications vary from country to country? I want to find out, whether Britain, as an island nation, developed a different travel market than for example Germany, which has 9 land borders.

The problem is: I can't word my question. And without one, I can't work. Don't get me wrong, I've done my research proposal, I'm halfway through my literature review - but I need to formulate my question in order to get started. I'm the same in journalism. I need my headline first, to give me an angle on the story, to focus. At the moment, I feel like I'm hanging in limbo. If you have any suggestions, on how to put all that into a proper, academic-sounding dissertation topic, let me know!

I know I'll need to write about 10,000 words (without counting quotations) until mid-March and that I'll have to write a certain number of words per day or week to get there. We get tutorials at uni, on how to reference in the Harvard-System, but what I for one need, would be a look at a previous dissertation. How did they lay it all out? Did they include an appendix? How structured were the dissertations? I know that this is just about style, but once again, this helps me focus and getting the job done.

Over the next week, I'll have to read the books (including the ones about writing dissertations - like the "15 mins a day" one) and make a start. Get my first few paragraphs on paper. March seems miles away from now, and yet I know it'll come around too soon!

Wish me luck!

Well, mine definitely is not! The University of Cumbria in Carlisle will be relocating the Brampton Road library. Apparently, the books taken out the most will go to the library at Fusehill Street, while all the rest of the books will go into storage at Milbourne Street.

The library at Milbourne Street was purpose-built for the University of Central Lancashire, whos Business School campus in Carlisle has been integrated into UoC. However, once they closed the Business campus and transferred the students to Fusehill Street, they closed the library. Now they are closing the second. Students at Fusehill Street enjoy a wide-range of medical, teaching and sports books, but everyone else will have problems getting set text books or writing their dissertations.

Brampton Road library has to go because the Graphic Design department wants to expand, although they have quite a few big rooms to themselves. Journalism really only has the newsroom, which is too small to hold all the students in three years at once, and a broadcasting studio.

They should keep the library and just not take on more students than they can accommodate. The money should rather be spend on updating their catalogue, as some of the books date back to the 90s and students get marks taken off for referencing out-of-date books...