Hello! I’m Kara Joubert, a journalism student from the University of Lincoln. This is the third episode of my video vlog.
I can’t believe I have been studying at La Trobe University for seven weeks! Lots has happened, like going on a film set, exploring the city and finding my feet in the new routine.
Watch for the full story, including my awkward first moment moving into my accommodation…
Prepare for the worst, pray for the best.
These are words to live by when it comes to travelling by flight.
It’s a good thing, too. Because preparation paid off. I went to Heathrow a day before my flight, just in case there were issues with the train lines. And there were. BIG ONES.
The entire Elizabeth line was knocked out, which would have meant severe delays for anyone travelling to the airport.
Not for me (cue evil laughter).
It is important to avoid stress as much as possible when it comes to these sorts of things. Especially if a 47 hour travelling period is involved.
That means comfortable clothes, investing in a foot rest for the plane, and ensuring you download your Spotify playlists.
Australia is ridiculously far away. You don’t realise just how big the planet is until 24 hours of sleepless travel has left you with left for right, right for left, legs that are jetlagged and a brain that is cramping.
Some mild confusion is a certain side effect of long haul flights. I react to extreme tiredness like someone who is essentially tipsy.
In all honesty, I did sign up for this.
Plus, it wasn’t all bad. There were some great moments.
I met some amazing people, including an Uber driver who was proud of his kids, essentially acting like the dad from Bluey. There was also a Heathrow staff member who upgraded me to economy plus for free.
Of course, the nice moments, like sugar, is only sweet when compared to sour things like these:
I will only be persuaded to go back into LA if a film set is involved.
Hello there! Join me, a British journalism student, as I venture into Australia to study at Melbourne’s La Trobe University as an exchange student.
In this post, I will discuss everything I did to prepare for studying abroad. That includes the application process, the cover letter stage, interview and visa.
Buckle up. Things are about to get a little “admin heavy”.
The year I applied to study abroad in the University of Lincoln, around 16,000 students were given this opportunity.
Some partner universities would only be available for students studying media. Others were open to all 16,000 students who might want to apply.
That included Melbourne’s La Trobe.
My lecturers said that everybody wanted to study here. So, who was I to apply? I was only few months into my degree, still a newbie.
It might sound underwhelming. But the answer to the above was simple:
“Why not?”
Studying abroad was a scary concept, but I was always up for a challenge. Especially if it meant I would be opening up my employability prospects.
So, I registered my interest and applied. But first, I needed to write a cover letter. Ideally, using more than “why not?” as an argument.
A cover letter is not always the most exciting thing to write. Even if you are excited to apply for the job or opportunity that requires it.
But genuine enthusiasm is definitely a necessity.
Thankfully, I had grown more eager to go as the prospect became more real.
In my cover letter, I included:
It must have worked, because sometime after, I was then called for an interview with my lecturers.
But that did not go how I expected. At all.
It felt quite intimidating at the time, but looking back I can understand why they needed to make sure I was sure of my decision.
Before walking into that interview, I was mostly certain. But during a near-debate with my lecturers, I HAD to be certain. They gave me every reason to doubt I would ever be accepted, and tried to persuade me to consider joining other universities.
But I stood my ground. By the time I left my interview I was very certain that La Trobe is where I wanted to go.
The acceptance stage is a funny one. Just because you are accepted does not mean you are enrolled. And just because you are enrolled does not mean you are going.
Acceptance is the first step of enrolment, and enrolment is the first step of getting a visa.
But I still punched the air when I saw that I was accepted. Now going to another country to study was a bit more possible.
If anyone wants to study abroad, I would offer them this tip above all else: BUY A NOTEBOOK. One dedicated just to studying abroad, because after I was invited to the pre-departure conference, my to-do-list was never the same…
The conference was an informative session teaching us about the visa application process, when to purchase your ticket, how to fill in the risk assessment and so forth.
It was also an opportunity to ask questions like, how to get a new sim card for your phone once you arrive and the importance of telling your bank you’re going abroad.
This is where things started to get very informative.
And a little overwhelming. Studying abroad had moved from being an abstract into a visible destination in the distance.
This headline can also be “DEADLINES, DEADLINES, DEADLINES.” These are so important, especially if you don’t have a massive amount in your bank account. I set alarms on my phone and filled in my notebook to remind me of the deadlines to apply for things.
There was a deadline for grants, a deadline to arrange a visa, and a deadline to select my subjects.
Remember when I said “just because you are accepted does not mean you are enrolled. And just because you are enrolled does not mean you are going?”
That’s where this statement comes in.
I was accepted by La Trobe. But I was not enrolled. That took much longer.
In Australia, if you want a student subclass 500 visa, you need a certificate of enrollment (CoE).
So, for a few months there was essentially nothing I could do but fill in paperwork and wait for a CoE.
As soon as that came through, I could start the visa process.
Filling the visa itself was not too grueling. I finished it after 2-3 hours.
However, all global visas have different processes and ask different questions. One of the ones I was given was “Am I a war criminal?”
To avoid any confusion, I should make it clear. The answer to that is no.
It took two months exactly before the visa was approved.
This is where you find me now. I am writing this in part due to procrastination. I will be flying in a week, and have barely started cramming my suitcase. Wish me luck on the next phase.
If you have any questions about the study abroad process, please feel free to ask!
Of course, to follow suit of the Batman lingo, this was a bat weird, bat film that made me question my bat sanity.
Alongside the tight leggings, there were admittedly a lot of Dicks (of course I’m referring to the yacht captain’s reading habits and Robin’s real identity, nothing more…)
But with the occasional random couple snogging, the instant outfit lever, and Catwoman’s need to randomly meow, I was often left asking, in a hazed state, “what was that?”
My best guess: a slapstick movie, made to entertain the kids and make the parents ask themselves the same questions I have… Why the eyebrows on the mask? Why the shark bat-spray? Why the tight shorts?
I can’t help but laugh at the dialogue. Like the Penguin’s facial prosthetics, it’s all a bit on the nose.
In comparison, you can’t even consider Nolan’s and Robert Pattison’s Batman as surrounding the same character. If anything, this film was closer to The Lego Batman Movie, and with nearly as much plastic in the form of giant signs and toys to make Batman’s situation as obvious as possible for its presumably young and young-at-heart audiences.
Minus the very sad (not really) off-screen death of a porpoise we never meet, and Batman’s punches that fall about a mile from his enemies’ faces, there is no real violence or emotional investment.
And with the Pentagon busy playing board games, riddles in which the answer is absurdly “banana”, and lines such as “some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb…” it’s a strange mix.
The biggest irk I had with this was the pace at which the film progresses. Now, perhaps I am not its target audience (although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find the campness of Batman 1966 hilarious). However, I found that the stakes could have been higher (I didn’t care much for the world leaders), and the whole Kitka situation could have been condensed a bit.
The story seemed all over the place, but maybe this was the idea?
Either way, it was fun, it was light, and it was bat-shit crazy.
Don’t ask me to lift weights and expect me to enjoy it. And unless you can give me the lungs of a triathlete, you won’t find me on a treadmill.
For me, most exercise is a chore, albeit a valid one to tend, but after studying at university and falling into the routine of wake – work – eat – work – sleep, I am generally too busy ‘working in’ to bother ‘working out’.
But perhaps that’s more of an excuse than a reason. In truth, I find there is something so dull about taking myself away from my station, to go one-to-one with exercise machines made for people looking to complete their convenient, unaspiring fitness goals: half of which will never be fulfilled.
Of course, you can listen to podcasts in your ears, or drum yourself into the energy of gym music in which lyrics of sex, success and break-ups blare from the gym playlist as if from a pumped DJ high on testosterone.
But I still find it boring, and eye the gym clocks the moment I walk in.
Now, if you’re a gym person then I won’t hold it against you. In fact, I recognise gym is a core element of many people’s lives for mental, physical and social wellbeing, and I salute those for their determination to get out of bed and intentionally cause discomfort on their bodies in this controlled environment.
They will probably beat me at any arm wrestle, too.
But here is the thing: nothing beats swimming and rock climbing.
Why? Because if you stop swimming, you drown. And if you stop climbing a climbing wall… well, with the right safety equipment, you would be fine, but nobody wants to scare themselves by falling!
Maybe I have a slight obsession with the sensation of soaring. Floating in the water, you feel weightless. High on a wall, you feel boundless. Running on a treadmill, I feel like a hamster in its wheel, stuck in the same place and going nowhere.
Now, I am no adrenaline junkie but when it comes to climbing and swimming, I like the thrill.
Getting into a pool, the first thing I feel is the cold. It’s uncomfortable, but I respect it as the medium on which I will float. Kicking off the edge of the pool, it’s as though I am kicking away the burdens of the day – moving, swimming, breathing, holding my breath – I don’t have the time to look at my problems, except to acknowledge they don’t exist in the water.
It’s difficult not to get caught in the symbolism of a physical challenge. Whether it is going to the gym, swimming, or climbing a wall, it is easy to think of the people that said you would never succeed, in life, studies and business, and then move through the pain as if with the resilience of someone saying, “watch me”.
Rock climbing feels like that. It’s scary, sure. But there is no better time to feel so big and yet so vulnerable as when you have climbed a wall and look down to see how far you have come. The adrenaline, mixed with the strain on your shoulders, arms and hands is an intoxicating mix. It is very difficult not to feel a sense of accomplishment afterwards.
That’s why I say these activities beat all.
There is no high horse for me to sit on, and I won’t pretend it. This is an opinion piece, after all. Yes, these activities seem to align more with the primal instincts around exercise, and for that reason could be seen as “exercise with a purpose”.
However, in the modern age, most of us don’t dangle from cliffs, chase after our food and commute across rivers. At least not in our daily routines. And with harnesses, running shoes and swimming pools, it’s not as if these activities bear any resemblance to cave-time activities.
Similarly, with gym, few of us have a real reason to run anywhere, or to strengthen our glutes, except for the corresponding health benefits, which are very important.
Let me be clear: I am not saying don’t go to gym. There are plenty of reasons why exercise is important, and I have already outlined a few. If gym is the best way to get it, then by all means: charge ahead!
But if you’re like me, a guilty party of unused gym subscriptions, I would make a recommendation: find the sport that feels like a treat to do, and then do it whenever and wherever you can.
There is a reason why so many gym goals never get fulfilled. Going to work out can be a difficult thing to commit to, especially for those with lots of business, home and personal responsibilities.
But it’s much easier to put aside those daily tasks if you know you’re going to have a fun time doing something else.
Rock climbing can be quite expensive, and as someone who cannot yet drive herself to the local swimming pool, I don’t go as much as I would like.
But if I had my own swimming pool or wall to climb at home, well let’s just say, I would probably be the one beating you at an arm wrestle.
This is what happens when Cathy Manso gives you the unexpected challenge to create a haiku poem during a radio segment for Southside Broadcasting.
We create to feel,
Kara Joubert
to decipher the unknown,
sharing things unsaid.
Enclosed in paper,
Kara Joubert
a pressed flower blooms in love.
Forever it lives.
This is what happens when Cathy Manso gives you the unexpected challenge to create a haiku poem during a radio segment for Southside Broadcasting.
It was my 11th birthday party at school when I was told that I won a poetry competition. I didn’t even realise my teacher submitted it to PiXL!
Creative me, artistic me
Incredible Me! by Kara Joubert, Age 10
The me that is truthful and honest
Friendly me, polite me
The me that is kind and modest
Determined me, confident me
The me that is clever and smart
Helpful me, truthful me
The me that will give you my heart!
Just a year after winning the award for London and Surrey, I was in secondary school, in Lincolnshire. Compared to London, it might as well have been a different country!
During this time, the inner confidence mentioned in the poem was replaced with self-doubt, a fear of failure, and deep loneliness.
Secondary school can be a vicious battle. I have seen gentle-hearted boys lose their kindness in favour of becoming men, and confident girls forget there was even a spark to begin with.
Yes, we all need to become adults eventually. And true, naivety can breed vulnerability.
But I still don’t understand why in the process of “growing up”, we have to lose so much of our inner child, as if it’s no longer relevant to hold onto.
In pursuit of understanding the world, children are often told to cast aside their thinking, and often with it, their heart.
So, from my 10-year-old self to yours, don’t forget about that kid!
The last Midweek Live Drive from the Siren studio before its closure and licence transfer.
With 24 souls bravely covering topics, including Ed Sheeran’s to-be tour chef Stacy Leith, Newark Book Festival’s Jack Cornish, Doctor Who discussions with Alan Steven, Authors Jennie Fincg and William Coles, as well as Jessica Burtis, Tosin Soyemi, singers Chloey Rose and Victoria Simmonds, Doctor Who director Graeme Harper, Phil Hurd-Wood, royal commentator and arts critic Richard Fitzwilliams, Lily Holleman, Tessa Snart, Keith Taynton, Gabrella Peralta, Ciara Mullins, Cathy Manso, Ben Lewis, Fia Van Den Bogart, Jodie Harrison, Meryn Hobson, Ana Cosconel, Kara Joubert and Alex Lewczuk.
To start at the beginning would take too long, but I would say it all began with an insomniac 7-year-old, lying awake in bed, creating imaginary sequels and spin-offs in her head.
Thankfully, my appreciation for storytelling has since branched into different mediums of writing, from scripts to stories to journalism. It was the journalism course that led me to the University of Lincoln. It seemed the pragmatic choice, but has opened many exciting doors.
The phrase “your degree is what you make it” rings particularly true in media.
Many think that in order to get from A to B, you need to follow a particular path. I would say that unless you’re looking to become a doctor or lawyer your degree doesn’t have to define your career. In the creative fields, you have more flexibility to create your own opportunities.
Rachel Scarrott’s filmmaking group was one of those opportunities.
Starting university, I made a promise to take any filmmaking and screenwriting opportunity that came my way.
I recall the moment I pitched my short story as a script idea. Back then, my voice shook whenever I felt nervous. It felt like a stab in the dark. I didn’t know what I was doing, I just knew what I wanted to do.
“Go for it,” she said, “and direct it, too.”
So, with money from the University of Lincoln’s Student Initiative Fund, that’s exactly what I did.
Still, moving from pitch to production was a mission. For a start, I did not know students in the film department. Nor did I know much about directing, nor filmmaking for that matter.
I just knew how to write a script. Mostly.
So, I asked around. One contact led to the next and soon enough, we had a crew. That included James Learoyd, who, along with “Directing for Dummies,” showed me the ropes.
Post-production was a lengthy experience. In addition to communicating between a team of students, the script was evolving, and time was being spent to align everything so when we were shooting, we hit our targets.
Of course, that all took place alongside my studies. The balance was easy enough to maintain, although that meant sacrificing a lot of free time. Many people advocate for the “classic” university experience (although not as many as you may think) and that includes raves, parties, drinking and sex.
To put bluntly, I had other things to do – sorry, Bumble.
Lots was learnt in a short period of time. With extracurricular filmmaking alongside my journalism studies, it felt like educational whiplash. But working on the film never felt like a chore. It felt like a dream.
Shooting itself was a highlight. By the end of each long day, the team achieved something remarkable.
The actors were so focused on their performances. Working with them was a delight. They made my first directing experience a positive one, and I would happily do it again.
Today, Petalled Apologies is still in post-production. This has taken longer than expected, mostly due to everyone’s deadlines for assessments.
But I can’t wait to show you.
Overall, creating the short film Petalled Apologies has been a dance-inducing, caffeinated, stressful, fun experience. I have no alternative but to thank everyone for allowing me to have that.
So, if you’re asking yourself: “how do I make a movie?”
Opportunities do exist. Look around. And then ask around. You’d be surprised how quickly one contact can turn into three. Being friendly and confident helps. Initially, I was terrified talking to people. However, my voice grew stronger during work experience.
“Work” for a lot of young British people means manning the tills at Tesco or the local charity shop. I was no different. It might not be the most exciting experience, but value this as an opportunity to exercise your social skills.
Your social skills, or at least, enthusiasm, can get you far. Speaking to people in-person is always more successful than over email. Talk to your peers, lecturers, industry professionals, the friends of friends…
But be selective about who you hold onto. Only invest in people who are decent and good at what they do. And remember, you can conscript anyone into helping you create a film, but you can’t force enthusiasm.
Apathy is a project killer. So, when gathering a crew, I’d suggest either finding people who are excited about your film and indifferent about their job, or people who are indifferent about your film and excited about their job. Ideally, find individuals who are excited about both.
Sometimes you can’t choose who you work with, so diplomacy and a strong footing might be needed when collaborating with certain individuals.
Expect everything to take longer, but hold people accountable to their own deadlines – including yourself.
Deadlines are important things to consider when looking for funding. Sometimes you can gather a crew and then start crowdfunding. However, you might be lucky enough to secure funding before having a crew. That also says to people that you’re serious about the matter, which encourages crew members to join.
Remember, most money is spent in production and post-production.
Pre-production (planning to film)
Production (filming)
Post-production (everything after)
Finding funding was easy for me, but only because I could speak with the filmmaking lecturers of the University of Lincoln. On top of that, we began a crowdfunder. But if you don’t have access to these sorts of contacts, you might need to be more creative with this.
Google helps. There are lots of grants and competitions around. You can also look for individuals and companies to sponsor your film, and offer executive producer roles in return.
Don’t be afraid to say you don’t know what you’re doing, but choose who you go to for advice. For me, that was James. Finding people who share your vision means that you can troubleshoot ideas with people who care.
However, learn as much as you can in your own strength, remembering to refill that strength as to avoid burnout.
And finally, keep going! Yes, there will be trials (plus at least one on-set disaster) but resilience will pay off.
Your determination is your weapon. So, say yes to as many opportunities as possible. The phrase “your degree is what you make it” is good and well, but I’d take it a step further: life is what you make it.
So “Go for it,” I say, “and direct it, too.”
Kara Joubert: Writer, Journalist & Filmmaker 