From Education to Journalism: How Ariel Got Into KCL’s Global Media MA

Updated 2026/10/16

If you love media, you may have thought about studying abroad as a way to reach a bigger stage. In an age of information overload, media studies have flourished in many countries, and the UK, a major hub of the international media industry, is a strong choice for study abroad.

This article walks through Ariel’s application journey and how she switched fields to get into KCL’s Global Media Industries MA in the UK, so you can learn from it as you start your own UK applications.

In this article

📂 Ariel: the story behind turning a dream into action
📂 An unusual choice to switch fields
📂 The road to studying abroad: overcoming challenges and pushing ahead
📂 Writing your application essays: an agency story full of twists
📂 The road ahead: cross-disciplinary learning and professional growth

KCL Global Media Industries MA

The UK’s communications sector is highly developed, and its education is highly specialized, with a focus on training people for specific niches. As a result, UK universities offer a surprisingly wide range of communications programs. They roughly fall into these areas (each with its own subfields): advertising and public relations, media studies, digital media, communication theory, journalism, broadcasting and television, and visual communication.

Today we’ll look at the inside story of applying for a global media industries master’s in the UK through Ariel’s experience switching fields! Ariel was admitted to several UK master’s programs in political communication or international communication and chose KCL (King’s College London) and its Global Media Industries MA. KCL’s media programs rank highly year after year, and its location in the center of London’s media industry makes it one of the top UK universities in the field. In the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2023: Communication & Media Studies, KCL ranked 26th in the world and 4th in the UK!

Ariel’s Background and Motivation

Can you briefly introduce your background? (Major, academics, internships, interests, and so on)

I’ve wanted to be a journalist since I was a kid and I love the news. In university I spent nearly three years practically living at a TV station.

My interests: chasing news stories, drinking tea at police stations, lazing around, and making friends over food and drinks.

I switched fields to apply for political communication, media, and strategic communication programs in the UK.

Why did you choose a master’s in the UK?

Mainly because of my career plans. After graduating I really want to go back to Taiwan and work as a journalist, and I’m not considering staying abroad for now, so the length of the program was my main consideration.

Compared with the US, the UK also costs a bit less in time and money. (Later I found out London isn’t necessarily cheaper… another miscalculation.)

Internship experience: why political communication instead of a traditional journalism program?

Because of the saying “Skip your studies as a kid, and you’ll end up a journalist”, and because I’m too proud to be looked down on, I decided to become a smart journalist with a brain.

Low pay and low social status have always been problems in the media industry. “Even if I’m sure I love journalism, how much of reality’s grind can that love survive?” If I had to sum it up in one line, that’s why I chose political communication. In more than two years at the TV station, I watched senior colleagues come and go. Some ran for office themselves, some became spokespeople, and many ended up in politics. From them I saw how much communication combined with politics matters, and I felt it was a field that leaves you options either way. In today’s media market, I think choosing a pure “Journalism” program is already a bit risky.

Taiwan’s media landscape changes fast. When I was little, people wanted to be reporters and news anchors. Now outlets like Initium Media, The Reporter, and many more online media have launched. Honestly, nobody knows what the media industry will look like in three or five years.

Applying Across Fields: Process and Challenges

Going from education to journalism, what advantages do you think switching fields gave you? Did you consider changing majors, double majoring, or transferring in university?

KCL’s program has a module that targets the relationship between children and the media industry, so I emphasized my experience combining early childhood education with journalism. I think that part was distinctive and helped my application.

Honestly, when applying to UK schools, I don’t think switching fields is necessarily an advantage. As I understand it, LSE leans toward admitting students from the same or related majors, to make sure they can do academic research. For a muggle like me without the right pedigree, LSE was the ceiling.

In university I actually wanted to transfer to the political science department at National Taiwan University. Because of the pandemic, admissions switched entirely to document review, and my original major had nothing to do with social sciences, so I couldn’t prove my academic ability and didn’t get in. That failure made me even more determined to go abroad for graduate school.

What challenges did you face applying across fields, and how did you overcome them?

The biggest obstacle was not knowing where my ceiling was or whether switching fields could work at all, because I was taking a path no one had taken before.

When I first went for consultations, one agency told me that with my background I probably couldn’t get into the top schools. Of course I felt a bit discouraged. But once I got my first offer, things slowly started to look clearer.

Can you share what you learned writing your application essays?

1. I think the most important thing is to find your standout point. Think of it as your signature: do everything you can to polish it and keep emphasizing it in your essays so the school sees it. That means cutting minor details and secondary content, or the whole thing gets messy. (Your SOP should match your CV!)
2. When you switch fields, explaining why you want to switch and how your field connects to the new one is also key. You may well be switching because you didn’t like your original major, but! It’s like breaking up with an ex: you can’t keep trashing them. Show some grace.
3. Include your future career plans. The strong applications I’ve seen all state directly what job the writer wants in the future, and upperclassmen advised me to do the same, meaning a long-term plan. I said outright that I wanted to become a political journalist or a spokesperson.
4. Mind the differences between writing in Chinese and in English. I wasn’t used to it at first, so I tended to ramble and couldn’t get to the point.

If you could redo your applications, what would you change?

If I could do it again, I’d research US schools more seriously (some have 1 to 1.5-year programs) and keep a tighter timeline. UK schools review applications on a first-come, first-served basis, yet I didn’t submit to KCL until February or March of the following year, which was actually very risky. I’d also be stricter with myself and put more effort into my recommendation letters.

What skills or knowledge do you plan to build while studying abroad?

Running my own media channels and building side businesses (journalists don’t make much money, after all). If I get the chance, I’d like to try writing columns or political commentary, and I’ll take courses in politics, diplomacy, defense, and law.

Any advice for younger students planning to study abroad?

Before I got the King’s offer, I always felt luck wasn’t on my side. In high school I wanted to get into Wuling Senior High School but ended up at my second choice, and on the university entrance exam fate played an even bigger joke on me.

I kept working hard and kept coming up short, and at times I felt like failure itself. I cared too much about outcomes, overthought everything, and hated losing, and that often made me miserable.

I went through a few periods where a bad exam felt like the end of the world. Taiwanese students fixate on school rankings and fear being defined so narrowly, of being labeled by an exam result.

Learning to accept failure, and keeping calm when you don’t look like much, matters a lot. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Applying abroad looks simple but is actually a rough road. Doubting yourself constantly (and burning money), lying awake at night, and feeling misunderstood are all normal reactions.

I always tell myself: “If it isn’t the best yet, it isn’t the end yet.”

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.

Fake it till u make it!

Your Twisting Story With a Study-Abroad Agency

I was never really happy with the documents the agency revised for me. I asked a few people to look at them, and they also felt the edits came from an “admin” person at the company (not a consultant), or straight out of Google Translate. They read very awkwardly, and many communications terms were used incorrectly. So I decided to tear down my CV and SOP and rewrite them from scratch. I submitted my first round of applications after Christmas in December, and I was super nervous.

They also almost never replied to my messages after office hours. If I sent something on a Friday, sometimes I’d only hear back three days later, which is pretty agonizing for an applicant.

Why did you use an agency, and how was it?

I was pretty close to breaking down when I applied. I was carrying 20-something credits (and spent two weeks mid-semester interning in the middle of nowhere), plus a tutoring job and work at the TV station, and there was simply no spare time to squeeze out. Political communication programs used to require a background in law, politics, or journalism. I was switching fields and didn’t think my writing was outstanding, so I worried my strengths wouldn’t come through. I thought having a native speaker polish my documents would make them stronger.

I’d heard that consulting firms assign consultants based on a student’s potential: the more likely you are to end up on their list of admits, the better your chance of getting a strong consultant. If you come from a good school with a high GPA and a polished resume, and you’re applying to popular programs, you probably don’t need to worry about this. But easy targets like us in social sciences or niche fields should think carefully. Agencies also work almost entirely online now, so it’s hard to know who is actually handling your case. Even if there’s a group chat, the person at the top may be there in name only.

I think the biggest drawback of agencies is that they have to work in the order students hand things in. Even if you send your materials early, they may not get to them right away because they have other students to look after. My conclusion: you really can’t tell a good agency from a bad one in the consultation. Plenty of agencies are smooth talkers, and some use the marketing tactic of knocking your confidence. Take what agencies say with a grain of salt. Don’t believe all of it, but you can use it as a reference to get a rough idea.