Oxford Women in Business

 Oxford Women in Business (OWiB) is an Oxford society that runs speaker events, workshops, socials and everything else you'd expect from a society. Most importantly for me, it also runs an excellent mentorship scheme. It's designed for women who want help primarily in business but I went into it looking for help regarding journalism. I'd actually not heard of it until it was shared on a Cherwell editor's group chat offering help for aspiring journalists and of course I jumped at the chance. 

Journalism is something I'd really like to get into and follow through as a career but my stumbling block is not knowing how to get into it, where do I start etc. No one in my family is even remotely connected with journalism, being teachers and working in local government etc so I was trying my best and getting involved in student journalism but not making much progress in finding information outside that. 

My experience was really excellent and I appreciated all the help I was given by my mentor. She wasn't specifically connected with journalism but had experience in communications and managing for TikTok as well as politics so was still a really good connection. 

I found the session advice a bit too prescriptive and the questions arbitrary but maybe that's because I knew exactly what I wanted so needed less prompting. The first session we just chatted generally about what I wanted to do and get out of the programme and what my mentor did and her job experience. 

The second session was geared more towards specific CV help. I sent in my CV and she went through it with my highlighting what needed improving or removing. It turns out there was a considerable amount that needed improving so that's definitely a work in progress!

I'm still waiting on my last couple of sessions. It's been difficult to get hold of my mentor just because she's so busy and her work is quite hectic and last-minute. Even if I don't get the last two sessions, the ones I did have were really informative and very useful and I would highly recommend the scheme to others, even if you don't know exactly what you want to go into.

I think most importantly it's given me the confidence to pursue career paths that are separate form anything my family have come from, an attitude I didn't really have before. Now I'm actually excited, and a little bit scared, to start applying for jobs this September and to see what's next after graduation!