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At The City of Liverpool College we love hearing about what our former students are getting up to,  one of whom is Paul Caslin, who graduated from our Level 3 Media Production course 15 years ago. Since then, Paul has been working as a director in the music industry and has some impressive career highlights. Here’s what Paul had to say:

What made you decide to study at The City of Liverpool College?

I originally applied to Liverpool John Moores and after what I thought was a successful interview process was rejected. At the time I wasn’t aware of the course at LCC but once I was it became clear that that was the best path, I’d almost class the course as a hidden gem that maybe doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. Being turned down by John Moores was the best thing that could have happened as I instead found a course that gave me incredible hands on experience in an environment that is designed to let your creativity breathe.

What course did you study and what was it like?

I studied Media and Film Studies, which was amazing, I learned so much! The main thing was probably how to be part of a team from a collaboration point of view but also from a delegation perspective, as in the industry you quickly learn that you can’t do everything yourself and you are only as a strong as your weakest member in the team.

I really enjoyed the balance of practical and theory. The only way to actually learn is to get hands on experience, whether it be in the edit suite or on set, but the theory side gave the course enough foundation to allow the practical side to all make sense. There was a clear direction as to how the two are intertwined

What are you doing now?

I left the college nearly 15 years ago and since then I’ve worked my way through the different strands of directing in the music industry. Originally starting out in the behind the scenes documentary world, then progressing onto music videos, then live music multi-camera direction. For the last five years I’ve moved into the creative direction side of things, designing live music tours for the likes of Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello and the VMA and EMA award shows for MTV.

Do you have any career highlights?

My career highlights would probably be when I was Grammy Nominated for Directing Rihanna’s Live DVD in 2009 and when I got to creative direct the VMA and EMA awards, as they were both shows that I’d always watched growing up and thought I’d never be good enough to get to work at that level, but by taking things step by step I finally did.

How did the College prepare you for work?

I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for The City of Liverpool College. Before I started the course, I’d never even picked up a camera or stepped inside an edit suite. The tutors gave me so much confidence and belief in my ability which still carries me through tricky situations even today 15 years on.

What advice would you give someone considering a similar career path?

Do it!! Enrolling at The City of Liverpool College is the best decision you’ll ever make… it certainly was for me!

We’d like to say a huge thank you to Paul for taking the time to talk about his experiences and wish him all the best with his future career.

If you are interested in a career in Media or Film like Paul’s, then our unique Media Production Diploma — Level 3 (One-year UAL Foundation Diploma), taught at the Arts Centre campus is a great choice. It offers learners a practical course, based around media, production and film making and is completed over the course of one year. It is equal to 3 A-levels and holds the same amount of UCAS points, so is therefore perfect for anyone wanting to get to uni within one year, or students looking to build upon their creative skills before starting a degree.

To browse our media, journalism and production courses, please click here.

From September 2021, The City of Liverpool College will offer T Levels to its students, in a move described as ‘the biggest shake up to technical education in a generation’.

T Levels have been created in collaboration with industry experts and aim to provide young people with the skills they need to enter the world of work and develop talent to support the economy’s recovery.

The qualifications are high-quality technical alternatives to A Levels, combining classroom theory, practical learning and a work placement to make sure students have the skills they need to progress and help rebuild the economy. They will provide young people with the chance to start their career, pursue further study or complete a high-quality apprenticeship.

The news comes following figures suggesting a third of graduates end up in non-graduate jobs, despite often paying fees of £9,250 per year, which were quoted in a recent speech by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson. Williamson called time on the notion that university education is superior to further education, suggesting it is unhelpful to drive half of all young people down a path which can mean they do not end up with the skills they need to find meaningful work.

The new T Levels have been created in collaboration with industry experts so students gain the skills they need to succeed in the workplace and so businesses can access the workforce they need to thrive.

A unique element of T Levels will be the completion of a high-quality industry placement – of at least 315 hours, or approximately 45 days – where students will build knowledge and skills and develop confidence within the workplace environment, helping to kickstart their careers.

Elaine Bowker, principal and chief executive of The City of Liverpool College, said:

“For so many years there has been the perception that A Levels and a university degree are superior to any other route into employment, but the world of work is changing and we have seen that more than ever in recent months. Now, more and more employers are looking for work-ready candidates with real world, technical experience, not just theory.

“These T Levels will support our economy to address the skills gap, to drive up productivity, raise aspirations and, as a result, support social mobility.

“There is understandably a huge amount of confusion and uncertainty for young people who are looking at their next steps at the moment, so it’s fantastic that we’re able to provide more options for them to find a path that is right for them.”

The City of Liverpool College is one of 88 new providers across the country to have been selected to deliver 18 T Levels. The providers will teach new subjects such as Legal, Finance and Accounting, Engineering and Manufacturing.

The first three T Levels for Digital, Education and Construction will be taught from September with a further seven to be taught from 2021, including three in Health and Science.

T Levels have been backed by an additional half a billion pounds of investment every year whilst programmes are fully rolled out, alongside £133 million to ensure students have access to industry standard equipment and high-quality facilities.

To browse courses and to start an application, click here.

What course did you study and why did you choose it?

I chose to do an HND in Computing and Systems Development. The course seemed to cover lots of various aspects of the IT industry, and I wanted to get exposure to as much as possible.

What made you choose The City of Liverpool College?

Being in Halewood at the time there were a few different choices, but The City of Liverpool College had great facilities and a really striking study area. Also, with the location of the college being so close to Bold Street the morning coffee was essential! 🙂

What was your general experience of the college like?

Being a mature student, I was apprehensive at first, but everyone from the tutors to the ladies in the canteen were friendly and genuinely interested in how your day was… that made a difference!

Did you enjoy the course?

I did an entry level course first (BTEC in IT LVL3) before my HND and all the courses I did were really engaging. Having an interest in IT and having done various IT related tasks prior to the course, I felt the course was informative and very well laid out.

What skills did you learn, what was covered on the course?

I learned a range of skills from procedural and object orientated programming languages, SQL, JavaScript, web design, .net and so much more. To say the course was varied would be an understatement! This is one of the reasons I chose this course as you can specialise in any field of IT so to get skills in all of them helped me understand where I would like to focus my career.

What were the tutors and facilities like?

The tutors were great! Friendly and open to larger conversations. I was given the space and time to digest what was being taught and it wasn’t like a conveyor belt where information was just thrown at you. I had time to digest what was being taught.

Again, the facilities were great! I really liked the open study area and being able to continue to learn in the classroom after the lecture was always helpful!

What are you doing now as a career?

I am currently the Environments Manager for William Hill. My roles and responsibilities are to manage the test environments and ensure stability and availability of the environments. William Hill are an excellent employer and the opportunities for me to further my career have always been on the table.

As part of my role I get to travel between the UK and Poland. We currently have a lot of our development teams working out of Krakow, Poland and part of my role requires me to ensure that those teams are fully supported when working in our non-production environments. I usually go to Poland four times a year (pre-COVID-19) and I can honestly say the William Hill culture spreads from the UK to Poland.

How do you feel the college prepared you for work?

During my time at college we did courses in time management and working in teams. While these don’t seem related to IT studies, they were definitely relevant, and the skills learned helped me with my expectations of what a company would need from me.

Do you have any career highlights you’d like to share?

My career highlights have been achieving what I have at William Hill. I have moved through three roles since I started at William Hill (starting as an IT analyst) and they are very keen to see you develop and empower you to fulfil your potential.

Do you have any advice for people who may be considering a similar career path?

My advice would be to continue to learn, don’t stop and keep your eye on emerging technologies. Any opportunities for industry learning such as cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) is not only interesting but cheap to play around with and you can do some pretty amazing projects with little start-up costs (and I’m talking a few dollars!).

Also, I would say don’t be scared to approach companies that you have heard about and would like to work for! Being a self-starter and being keen to learn will always show the employer that you’re not only ready to start ‘a job’ but you’re focused on a career.

Do you have any advice for people who may be unsure about applying due to COVID-19?   

While COVID-19 wasn’t around when I was at college, what I would say is The City of Liverpool was always a safe and clean place to study. The canteen was always spotless and the rooms never dirty. I am sure the college has put extra precautions in place to keep students safe. Lastly, adopt as much learning at home as you can! With the use of technologies for remote learning, as an IT student it’s your gift to embrace technologies such as Teams or Zoom… or build your own!

We’d like to say a huge thank you to Paul for sharing his story and wish him all the best with his future career.

If you’re interested in a career in ICT, Computing or Systems Development, and would like to find out more about our courses, click here.

The City of Liverpool College has announced a unique partnership with Liverpool-based performing arts school, Rare Studio.

Rare Studio’s students have gone on to tour with the likes of Dua Lipa and Little Mix and deliver a Level 4 Higher National Certificate (HNC) in Dance, offering a progression route for Rare’s students to continue their training.

Rare Studio, known for accepting students based on merit rather than financial wealth, approached The City of Liverpool College – which provides courses ranging from HNC to BA level across dance, acting and musical theatre – to offer its students progression to the next level.

Elaine Bowker, principal and chief executive at The City of Liverpool College, said:

“Rare is a fantastic organisation which gives unique opportunities to young, aspiring performing artists in the Liverpool City Region. We’re excited to work with Rare, to bridge the gap for these aspiring dancers, keeping the fantastic talent we have here in the Liverpool City Region and providing them with the opportunity to progress in the industry.”

Lindsay Inglesby, director at Rare Studio, added:

“This new qualification is the right step for us at Rare. We’re passionate about supporting the most talented individuals to progress and begin successful careers in a field that they truly love.

“We know how hard it can be to make it, so providing our students with opportunities such as this is incredibly important to us, in order to give them the experience they need and to help them forge a brilliant future.

“Students on this course will benefit from the incredible resources that The City of Liverpool College has, all while training in a professional environment at Rare Studio. We can’t wait to see what they achieve.”

Now open to applications from progressing students, training for the qualification will be delivered by Rare Studio at its city centre headquarters, supported by The City of Liverpool College’s higher education framework.

To find out more about our dance courses, click here.

Don’t worry if you missed out on joining our Virtual Open Events, as you can watch them again here!

From games design to engineering, catering to health and social care, during these events we showcased everything that our courses have to offer, whether you’re looking for GCSEs, apprenticeships, or degree and post-graduate levels.

Our expert tutors were also on hand to answer any questions our participants had about our courses, facilities and what to expect from life at The City of Liverpool College.

Take a look below:

To browse our courses and begin your application, click here.

We are for you. We are for the future.

We are incredibly proud to hear that two of the College’s journalism graduates, Jess Molyneux and Lisa Rand, have recently been nominated for the Society of Editors’ ‘Reporting Communities Award’ for their roles as Community Reporters at the Liverpool Echo.

Jess and Lisa both studied on our fast-track NCTJ Level 3 Diploma course, which is designed to lead directly into a role as a multimedia journalist. This course is officially accredited by The National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) and is the only course of its kind to be offered in the Merseyside area. It is the only qualification you need if you’re looking to pursue a career in journalism.

As part of the course, students are guaranteed work experience, undertaking a placement at the Liverpool Echo and are given the opportunity to cover real events across the city for a variety of other media outlets. In Jessica and Lisa’s cases this led to them being offered a permanent role at the Liverpool Echo straight after college. We caught up with Jess and Lisa to find out what they’ve been up to since graduation, and to hear what their experience of College was like:

Jess Molyneux, Knowsley Community Reporter for the Liverpool Echo, in partnership with Facebook and NCTJ.

“I studied the NCTJ Level 3 Diploma fast track course, from September 2018 to January 2019. I did an English with Philosophy degree at the University of Liverpool and whilst there I wrote for the student newspaper the Sphinx, but prior to that I had never studied or had much work experience in a real newsroom.

“The course and the tutors really prepared me for a career in journalism. Not only did it give me opportunities to build contacts and have regular work experience, but it also taught me skills such as media law and ethics that I didn’t previously know anything about. It also allowed me to be creative, source my own stories and meet deadlines, which is something I do day-to-day in my current job.

“With the support and experiences the college provided, I was able to start a job in journalism as my course was coming to an end. At the beginning, I was worried that despite all of the work I had done, it would be too competitive for me to get a role in a newsroom. The tutors encouraged me to go for roles coming up and without Alice’s support, I don’t think I would have had half the chance I did.

“What I enjoyed most about the college was getting to know the people on my course, meeting local media contacts, using top filming equipment and software that I still use in the newsroom today and getting the support from the tutors.

“The advice I would give to people aspiring to start a career in journalism is to work hard, take the course seriously but also have fun and enjoy it. If you show you’re invested and aren’t afraid to put yourself out there and be creative, it will go a long way.”

Lisa Rand, L8 Community Reporter for the Liverpool Echo, in partnership with Facebook and NCTJ:

“I studied the fast track NCTJ Diploma at the Arts Centre in City of Liverpool College and completed the diploma in June 2019. I started work as a community reporter for L8 for the Liverpool ECHO upon completion of the course. The Community News Project is part of a scheme with the National Council of Training Journalists (NCTJ) and Facebook and is a two-year project to reinvigorate local newsrooms. It’s a really exciting scheme to be part of and my training at the City of Liverpool College prepared me perfectly for the role.

“The course was invaluable – Alice and the team brought all of their industry skills, experience and know-how into the classroom environment, giving us plenty of insight into how to succeed within regional news, how to research, prepare and put together articles with a strong community focus, and we had lots of opportunities to gain work experience along the way.

“Alice was very supportive and kept us all motivated, focused and developed our confidence to pursue our dreams. Our tutors were always keeping us up-to-date with the latest opportunities for roles and traineeships that would be relevant to our areas of interest and encouraged us to apply, and I was lucky to be offered the community reporter role while still on the course.

“The fast-track course is very intensive, but our tutors helped make it an enjoyable experience along the way. I really enjoyed working alongside my fellow students as we got to grips with the fundamentals of media law, shorthand, essential journalism techniques, video journalism and public affairs and I enjoyed every minute of my time at the college.

“Although shorthand is a tough skill to learn, with Alice’s expertise and encouragement I actually came to enjoy our daily shorthand lessons, which I never thought I’d say, and feel that the course as a whole really equipped me with the practical skills and knowledge required to make the move into the newsroom – I’d highly recommend the course to any budding journalists.

“I love the role that I’m in currently – it really is my dream job, being a community reporter for an area that I have lived in much of my adult life and that I am very fond of – it’s great to be able to tell the stories of the amazing things going on in L8 and also to delve into the issues that matter to the local community.

“My advice for those considering journalism as a career would be to go for it – I spent years dithering, not quite believing it was possible for me to actually become a journalist. Once I’d taken the leap of faith, I wondered why I hadn’t done it years ago.  I’d say be nosy and curious, keep writing and get as much published as you can, whether that’s self-publishing or taking the opportunity to write for local magazines and websites – build up your portfolio and enjoy!”

We’d like to thank Jess and Lisa for taking the time to speak to us about their experiences and wish them all the best with their future careers in journalism.

If you’d like to find out more about our NCTJ Level 3 Diploma courses, click here.

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