By Olivia Snaith-Cairns and Florentina Cercel
“Journalism has also allowed me to identify my purpose in life: I’ve enjoyed helping students around me because it’s given me a lot of joy to see others succeed”
Aaron Patel is a former London Metropolitan University student who graduated in 2020 with a BA in Journalism and in 2021 with an MA in Creative, Digital and Professional Writing. He currently works as a Commercial Marketing Coordinator at KCLSU.
The 24-year-old editor will be a panellist at tonight’s debate at London Metropolitan University as part of their Journalism Newsweek, titled: ‘Student Mental Health: Will we bounce back after Covid?’.
During his time at London Met, Patel co-founded his own student mental health magazine. Mental Magazine gives an ‘honest take’ on student mental health, he says.
When creating the magazine as part of a BA Journalism module ‘everything just clicked’, he said. “We were students as well so it was easy for us to talk to other students and understand what type of content would be needed in that magazine.
“It just went from there. It was a very niche thing, a market that hadn’t been plugged into yet, so I think it all just came together quite well.”
Patel didn’t set out to work in the field of mental health. He explained that he always ‘had a huge passion for football but was never really good at it” so he initially planned to become a sports journalist.
“As my degree went on I found other areas of journalism I became interested in and really it grew from there.”
Breaking away from the stigmas
Talking between peers about mental health is highly important. People need to know that “there’s a support network around you”, said Patel.
“You’ve got your mates, you’ve got your family, and I think that’s a different level of connection between talking to someone who is a professional and to someone who is your mate.”
Patel detailed that ‘that level of understanding would be there’ between friends. “You are more intimate with each other; you get each other on a level and it’s not coming from a professional point of view.”
He explains: “They don’t know you personally, they are going off characteristics and what they can see in front of them.
“Obviously you can’t provide professional advice but there’s a level of connection that is needed between certain people.”
- The LMU debate will go ahead tonight (25.01.22) from 5pm until 7pm.
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