A work experience to remember

How I took on a work experience in The Times' Interactive team, managed to start and finish my own project there and how it was the best two weeks of my life. In a sense.

I have always been quite ambitious, strong headed and determined, but boy, am I shy and scared sometimes! There are days I am so focused on becoming the best visual/data/interactive journalist on the planet and another day I am not able to look into someone's face without blushing and staggering.

Weirdly I have still managed to go for it and did work experience on two of the biggest and best national papers in the UK. The last one in The Times' Interactive team (, which is actually kind of mixed with the Data one).

I have learnt new things and what's more, I have made new contacts with incredible people and spent a lot of focused time on doing what I really want to do in my life. All the blues I have had recently went away as I have understood it is only natural to have doubts when I only have time to do what I love when tired and frustrated from the whole day spent on something else.

I have tried to prepare myself a bit but I couldn't really find much about what happens during the placement. So maybe for the next ones: how has it been and what to expect?

The team is incredibly helpful and friendly, you just can't forget they have work to do. They will always try to help when you ask (and you should ask of course, that's why you're there and they know it), but you have to be the one with initiative. I was feeling awkward at the start (and I am pretty sure everyone saw that), but it wasn't my first work experience and I knew I would be sad I didn't ask around more after I'm gone. Even though two weeks is already a nice amount of time, it is over in a wink of an eye and you have to try to get the most of it.

At the start I've got acquainted with the software used for most of the news charts, Datawrapper. I had known the software already when I started the internship - you can get a free account and use it for your own work as it is not an in-house software. DW is very easy to work with and it can be a really powerful tool. I really like their location maps for example as you can use a lot of symbols and arrows to mark important things in an area.

The Times use their own version of DW developed specifically for the newsroom, however the environment is practically the same. Datawrapper's Lisa Charlotte Rost is also a really interesting person to follow, so I'll do you a favor - here's her blog and twitter.

Apart from making and updating existing charts and data for the edition (the daily needs for the news desk), you will probably try to help with some research of more of a long term topics. On monday mornings and friday afternoons there are usually team meetings. Everyone talks about what they will be/has been doing for the week, so you can try and grasp the opportunity to offer your help or just try and do some research on anything connected. You'll know what they work on so make yourself useful and think about unique views on the topic.

I was really lucky as there was a new timely topic coming up from a collaboration with different desk and I got to produce some ideas resulting in getting my own project within the topic. I have done some research, scraped some data, looked into them and analyzed them and voilà - there is my own data-led piece probably going out soon!

Working on this project brought a huge amount of satisfaction to me. It felt good and I have seen an idea through in give or take a week. What an experience!

The only problem is that now when I am gone, I have to keep myself busy without anyone overlooking my projects and without any feedback again. I will try and do as much as I can, I only wish there will be an opportunity to make my living by doing what I want soon.

So if it sounds like something you want to do as well, here you can apply for the same. I definitely do recommend this. Oh and they have really good views!