Unless you’re part of that driven, single-minded minority of people who have known exactly what career path they wanted to follow since an age when they couldn’t have possibly even really understood what that job involved, the idea of deciding on a future career probably seems fairly exasperating.

Of course, you might not have felt this exasperation; that’s probably because as of yet your brain hasn’t tried to make you think about it. Instead, you’re leading a happy-go-lucky, take-each-day-as-it-comes existence. Which is fine. After all, you’re young, and you should enjoy the carefree liberty that youth brings rather than getting bogged down in the angst of having to settle on how in the future you’re going to simultaneously pay the bills and spend your waking hours doing something that doesn’t make you want to curl up into a little ball and start sobbing uncontrollably.

But while enjoying your current lack of responsibilities and just living in the present moment is great, career-decision day will ultimately come. And just as Sarah Connor wisely started stockpiling guns in preparation for Judgment Day (hey, just because Terminator 2 is probably older than you are doesn’t stop it being a film worth referencing!), so too would you be wise to start arming yourself with information about different types of jobs for when that day comes.

We thought we’d give you a nudge in the right direction with some blog entries on different types of jobs you could consider. In this first posting from the series, we look at the world of newspaper journalism.

Although the market for printed newspapers has been in decline for a good few years now, largely due to the rise of digital media, there is still–and probably always will be–demand for written articles that present the news in an informative fashion, analyse the complexities of going-on from across the world, tell of exciting new products and trends or simply keep people entertained.

That’s where you, the journalist, come in. It will be your assignment, should you accept it, to write these articles. While this could mean covering international diplomatic events, in practice the majority of newspaper journalists work for local papers, writing about happenings such as crimes, court cases, local-government decisions, significant local events or interesting local people. If you’re doing these same things at a national newspaper, it means you’re working in the upper echelons of your profession.

An alternative to working for a newspaper is to work for a news agency; your role would be much the same, with the difference being that your stories are sold by the agency to various newspapers. Some journalists also work as freelancers, meaning they are responsible for selling the stories they write to newspaper editors. The rewards can be bigger, but really this is for seasoned journalists with a good network of contacts.

Now, unless as a journalist you move into the world of writing opinion pieces, your daily workload is likely to be more based around researching stories than it is writing them up. You’re the person who will be attending the press conferences where information about events is passed on to journalists; it’s you who’ll go around knocking on doors, asking for interviews with people who might have witnessed the story you are covering; you’re the one who’ll be attending trials to then recount what happened that day in court; and you’re the lucky guy who gets to sit in the press box at Premier League games so that you can then write a match report that gives the lowdown on the talking points people will be discussing in the pub later that evening.

All this means a lot of being away from your desk, and often working at weekends or at night–stories break twenty-four hours a day, and someone has to be on the scene to cover them. And although you’ll be reporting on the powerful, rich and famous, you’ll probably be earning but a fraction of what they make, unless you reach the very top of the profession or make the transition into television.

But on the other hand, you’ll be at the very heart of the events that everyone’s talking about and shaping the way that people see the world. And, as any journalist will tell you, there’s no rush like the one that comes from being the first to break a big story or unmasking high-level wrongdoing through your dogged research.

To get into newspaper journalism, there are two things you need. Firstly, and unless you have contacts in the media who can pull strings for you–it is unfortunately a bit of a nepotistic world–you’ll need to prove you’ve got what it takes in terms of motivation, news-gathering and writing skills through getting some relevant work experience. This could include writing for your student paper, doing a work placement at your local paper, or maintaining your own blog.

The other near-compulsory thing is to get a journalism qualification. There are two main routes to this. One is to study a journalism course at university, while the other is to take a postgraduate diploma in journalism having done a degree in something else. Whichever of these you choose, it’s essential that the course is accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists; this is your guarantee that you’re doing a course that covers the skills and knowledge that newspaper editors are looking for when they hire people.