Journalism is a highly competitive sector and building up your skills and work experience can help give you the edge over other candidates. Internships are very common, with unpaid internships still very much the norm.
Contributing to a publication, writing a blog, doing work experience and being actively engaged on social media can be effective ways to build your contacts and develop a portfolio of work.
Experience will be important for getting onto a journalism training course, so try to build your portfolio whilst at Sussex.
Researching and finding contacts may be key to securing your own work experience. Try to find the name of the person responsible.
Apart from anything else, it will show you have the skills and tenacity that you will need if you want to be a journalist. You can use printed resources, the web, social media...
Social Media is really important for journalists because it presents and promotes your work in a way that anybody can access
It also allows you to build up a following, prove your skills, and keep up with news