Meet The Team: Adetunyori Okupe

Gaining work experience, internships and graduate jobs has never been harder than it is now, especially in the creative sector. It has been the case than many publications can't offer the support they once did to young people, down to a lack of funding and increased pressure. We recently were part of a panel talk hosted by Leeds Beckett University, it centred around graduate opportunities, seeking creative experience and not letting your degree define you.

Almost immediately after the panel, Adetunyori Okupe got in touch asking about whether he could gain some work experience. It got us thinking and before you know it we launched our work experience scheme, we want to help aspiring journalists learn everything involved with running a magazine. The week consisted of daily hour-long tasks and workshops, followed by a fully-paid day at the end of it, which thanks to your T-Shirt purchases we were able to offer. We want to roll this out into 2021 and offer it again, if you are interested in applying for the scheme get in touch via email. We are also looking for any potential sponsors of the scheme, whose support would help us expand, offering more resources to more aspiring journalists. We talked to Adetunyori Okupe, the first person to take part in the scheme. It's been a pleasure working with him and we'll definitely be keeping him involved, best of luck for the future Adetunyori!

Tell us a bit about yourself?

Hey there my name is Adetunyori Okupe or Ade for short, I am 23 years old and I am an

international Nigerian student who studied broadcast media at the undergrad level and I

am now completing my masters in journalism.

How did you get your work experience at BabyStep?

I was speaking to the Leeds Beckett Career Team right before I graduated and they pointed me towards

Josh Crowe and I was like sure I could get involved. I got in touch with a piece of written work

for him and then I emailed back saying do you have any work experience and now here I am.

How have you found this week of work, what insight has it given you?

It’s been fast the week really went by fast because I was constantly thinking I have this to do

and that to do and uni work as well so it kept be busy made me appreciate what editors and

writers do. I feel I learnt a lot form this in terms of writing and looking out for

information and what’s trending in the world and my respecting surroundings.

Are you listening to any good music at the moment?

I listen to Jon Bellion everyday Hand of God just gets me through the day, as well listening to

Wizkid’s album because its just pure vibes and apart form that the occasional Drake ,

Juicewrld , Big Sean and other mainstream artists .

What did you find the most enjoyable part of the week?

The thing I enjoyed most was the feeling I got from submitting pieces, looking at a finished piece of work, I

like to stare at it and be like I did that and give myself a pat on the back as positive reinforcement because writing or any form of creation is draining and it takes something from you every time.

We saw you wrote an amazing piece on Pa Salieu, what does he mean to you as an artist?

He is actually an amazing artist he is versatile and every song is a shock to me because he

covers so many different types of rap and delivery and his flow, I am happy when listen to

him because he isn’t generic and the same time, he isn’t too niche.

Where are your favourite places to go to in Leeds?

Before lockdown my favourite places to go were mainly the movie theatre because I just

loved movies and apart from that I just enjoyed to company of friends and

such but I want to go out more and experience more things so I can write about more things.

What are your aims going into 2021?

I have plenty of aims fro 2021, firstly, to just graduate my masters. I also want to build up a following on social media and have at least 5k followers on my Instagram engaging with my content. Workwise I'd love to have multiple streams of income, create my gaming, anime, food and lifestyle and motivation blog. Another big thing is to just be happy.

Would you recommend the BabyStep Work Experience week to others?

I would 100000% recommend any one to do work experience here it may seem like a lot if

your doing other stuff on the side, but once you get into it its actually quite fun and you get

to learn about yourself as a creator what you don’t like and what you do like.