Bianca Hartel
Bianca has many passions but a strong thread throughout her life has been her love of storytelling. She loves sharing people’s stories and seeing the powerful reaction that can come from a heart-warming or inspiring story. Her career has reflects this love. Throughout her time at UCT, she completed various media internships, the most notable being editorial intern at Media24's Seventeen Magazine. After graduating, she briefly worked in PR as a communications assistant but quickly found that she wasn't following her true passion. She moved on to Highbury Media where she started as an editorial intern and worked her way up to features writer, then assistant editor. She was then approached to take a job at Cosmopolitan South Africa where she worked as online editor and in January this year returned to Highbury Media where she now works as editor of Balanced Life magazine. At 24, she is the youngest editor at Highbury Media. She believes the media production stream at UCT, more specifically print media production, assists her in her career day to day. She says, “it was an incredibly practical course. I use the skills I learnt (InDesign, copyediting, feature writing etc.) throughout this speciality every day”. Her fondest memory from her time at UCT is her print journalism class and the close relationships she formed with everyone. She highlights that she “even works at the same company as the lecturer who supervised my final year project”. Bianca’s advice for incoming students is “Stop stressing about life after university, everything will work out. Don't let people talk down to you about your BA and always make sure you have enough printing credits (especially when you're hustling to get your assignment in by 12!)”.