A Look On The Recent Past

My experience with the journalism and mass communications major in general has been a great experience. In my five years at college I have declared four majors. I started in business but couldn’t find a passion there. I moved onto anthropology and met disappointment again. There was little to no study on the fields I wanted to cover. My next leap was into statistics and I only lasted a semester. However I saw the light and jumped head first into journalism.

Don’t get me wrong there is several points I would like to see changed in the journalism and mass communications program. These changes revolving around the idea of new writing courses such as an advanced copywriting course and more classes to continue polishing your skills for the real world. If there is one thing I can tell you, the more practice you get the better off you are. This said, I also minored in writing so I could attempt to master as many forms of writing before I graduate.

I remember taking my first newswriting course over the summer as an online class. My parents had planned a trip out of the country for over a year and it took place in the middle of the class. However, we only had a couple assignments a week and despite the tropical resort I found the assignments just as fun.

To anyone considering going into the journalism major I have several warnings for you. One, do not limit yourself to your emphasis or required courses. You should take as many journalism classes as you can in all the emphases offered at your school. Two, take as many writing classes outside of journalism if you feel you are struggling. As I said before, practice is the key. Three, make sure you are a nice person, at least on the surface. What I mean of course is strike up conversations with strangers. You wouldn’t believe the stories they will tell if you simply listen to what they have to say.

If I didn’t make it obvious I do wish I had the chance at several other journalism based writing courses. However, I found each one exciting and stepped up in difficulty with each class. What I didn’t expect was to gain better social skills. In the journalism program you’re forced out into the world to find people to interview. If you have bad social skills you’re not as likely to get good quote. You may even cause someone to end an interview. That experience was by far the most beneficial to me.

Information Technology, the lighter side

For my day-in-the-life story I followed Phillip Wyperd. Wyperd is the supervisor of West campus information technologies for the University of Northern Colorado. It was a very interesting class and very entertaining to follow him through his day.

We started the day off with a phone meeting about replacing two computers with new ones. Wyperd explained that computers were erased and redistributed to other government departments. Next we walked to the back rooms where the several servers for west campus are kept. He explained each server is the model for all other computers.

Next we visited several of the IT personal and were met by laughter. The sound of Geico’s music video was playing on the screen. One of the IT was assigned to figure out a way to play a video while a computer is booting up. He figured it out and decided to use a one of Geico’s music videos as a supplement until he received the video from UNC. We ended the eventful part of the day with helping a faculty member recover a program and pictures for her.

The IT department was very funny and was very easy group to get along with. I learned what happens to old computers, where they keep a few of their servers and even what plans are being made for the start up cycle of every computer on campus. I enjoyed writing the story and I hope you enjoy reading it. Use the 410 Forum link to read the story.

The Internet and me

I am a UNC student and I have recently written a story for my advanced news and feature writing class. My profile story was about the possibility of Internet addiction in college students. I focused my story on two actors and an expert. The actors are roommates and were Andy Freas and Seth Bovari. The expert was Chris Leck, a counselor from Colorado State University.
After having time to reflect about the story I couldn’t help but notice traits of Internet addiction that paralleled some of my own. From the research I conducted I learned the best way for someone to identify an addiction they may have. The other hardest part was finding a knowledgeable expert. The first I originally started with gave me very vague and boring answers. So, after researching I was able to find Leck and he turned out to be a great expert for the story.

The topic itself was far more interesting than my concerns and I was able to power through. The easiest thing about this story was actually becoming excited to research it. I often find myself bored with most papers but this I really enjoyed doing. The most significant thing I learned writing this story was how to identify an addiction. When something is cutting into time you rather be doing or need to be doing something else, you may have an addiction.
This story like all those before it has benefited my writing skills. I’m a little better with each paper I write. I have learned I need to check, recheck and check one last time before I turn in any paper. If I don’t have the time to set it down and walk away I seem to miss a lot of mistakes. If however, I do walk away and then come back it is as though I have a new set of eyes.
As far as excelling in this paper and needing improvement I could tell you there were both. As I stated before I just need to remember to block out enough time to write, walk away and then edit. What I did great on was the research. I feel I was able to get a bunch of information and have it sound very good in the story. Use the 410 Forum link to read the story.