Draft 1
JOURNALISM FOR NON-JOURNALISTS
College students with varying career paths benefit from Journalism class
By. Vic Wilbur
Students at University of New England took Professor Jesse Miller’s Introduction to Journalism class in the Spring 2020 semester for many reasons. For some, the class is required in order to complete their Communication Major. Others say that the class seemed to be an interesting communications class to take even when they had so many to choose from. Some even took the class despite it not being required for them.
Despite the variety of reasons to take the class, the students agree that there is something valuable for everyone to learn. Montana Stephens, a Marine Affairs student, originally took the class because her major requires one communications class. She was happy with her choice to go with journalism because she learned a lot about the importance of journalism for society.
“Journalism is something that everyone needs. We are a species that needs communication. We’re all looking for what’s happing in the world so, I feel like journalism really hits that.”
Learning about journalism helps us understand and satisfy the need to communicate. Not only about how important journalism is in general, but also how to successfully create journalistic content.
Montana comments on this type of communicating. “It’s just an interesting perspective to have…getting information out and sharing with people in a certain way.”
The part of the experience that Montana really found unique is the mindset she was adopting with her work in this class. “The experience of thinking like a journalist and talking to different people to get the scoop on the topic I was researching.”
What is it like thinking like a journalist? It’s being hyper-observant of what’s going on around you that might be newsworthy. It’s finding the right people to interview at the right time and coming up with questions to get enough valuable information to create a full-bodied story. One that doesn’t leave the reader scrambling for missing pieces of the picture. It’s always having a backup plan so you can easily adapt to changes and challenges that you will constantly face.
Montana learned to become readily adaptable the hard way. Being on the other side of her challenges, she offers advice for other journalism students. “Email people that you know are going to email you back and if not, make sure to find a different topic quickly.” She understands that there will always be obstacles journalists will have to instantly hurdle in order to stick to their deadlines.
Many of these skills students like Montana have learned in this class can directly benefit them in their future careers after college.
Another Marine Affairs student named Alexandra Michaud chose the journalism class because it would enrich the research she will be doing in her future career. “I figured that I would be publishing and commenting on ocean related activities that would appear in the news.”
Montana plans on using the interviewing skills she learned in this class to have more confidence reaching out to people. She says that will be helpful for her in the future.
“Being able to go to people when you need more information and finding out who you need to go to. Because for the different topics obviously you have to figure out who’s all involved and what they can bring to the table.”
Communications major, Kaelin Cegelski, has a more direct connection to journalism. Taking the journalism class and even joining the University’s newspaper staff led her to pursue a writing minor. The writing minor will help her personalize her degree to fit her interests and give her more skills to work with when finding a career.
Her internship with an advertising agency last summer began this journey of writing discovery. She says that she’s looking forward to practicing several different types of writing and expanding her options for future careers.
“The journalism and the news club were just very different aspects of writing that I hadn’t really dug into yet. So, it was really fun for me to use a different side of my writing brain and I’m hoping that with the writing minor, I can kind of do a little bit more of the exploring of writing.”
Before taking this class, Kaelin was used to writing in more creative and academic formats. Journalistic writing is much different and can actually vary. In a basic sense, writing a news story is featuring the main point in the very first sentence. It’s going straight to the most important information first and then revealing more details as the story goes along.
This is by design because journalism is all about grabbing the reader’s attention from just a couple words in the headline. If someone is scrolling through social media, they are more likely to click on the news story if the headline piques their interest. So, the gist of the story needs to be at the very beginning to inform even the people who won’t take the time to read through the entire story.
Learning about things like this in the journalism class can also benefit the students in their personal lives. Kaelin was one of these people who would just skim through stories to avoid tedious reading. However, a project in the class known as the ‘blog proj’ changed her perspective.
“I think that was a very eye-opening experience for me. In my personal life, I will have less reservations about opening a news story and kind of reading it through. I think it will help me be a little more informed about the on-goings of the world.”
Another part of the class that students valued was when it came time to workshop each person’s feature story. Each workshop day, there would be a couple stories that everyone had read and commented on beforehand. In class, everyone would talk about what they felt like was working in the story. Suggestions people had for the writer to work on in revision were also discussed.
Montana, along with many students, say that this was their favorite part of the class. “To have everyone coming together and picking up what other people are picking up on someone’s piece. It really shows how other people perceive your work and how you look at other people’s work.”
The experience was really eye-opening for many students because it allowed them to see everyone’s perspective at once; both the differences and similarities. Some noted that it helped them feel more comfortable with their writing since everyone was so professional and helpful with their comments. Kaelin says the workshopping process made her more open to getting suggestions on her work.
“To put everyone together and see that a lot of the things that I was saying were also being said by other people kind of made me realize that yes, my perspective is valued but other people’s perspectives can be just as valuable. I think that overall really helped me sort of trust the process a little bit more and be able to let people look at my work and know that what they’re saying is just as important as what I have to think.”
Overall, Jesse’s introduction to journalism class had a variety of student majors and perspectives in it. However, each student was able to leave the class feeling satisfied with what they’d learned. These students will hold onto their journalism skills to enrich their future careers and personal lives as successful adults.
Draft 2
JOURNALISM FOR NON-JOURNALISTS
College students with varying career paths benefit from Journalism class
By. Vic Wilbur
Students at University of New England took Professor Jesse Miller’s Introduction to Journalism class in the Spring 2020 semester for many reasons. For some, the class is required in order to complete their Communication Major. Others say that the class caught their eye amongst several other interesting ones to choose from. Some took the class even though it wasn’t required.
Despite the variety of reasons to take the class, the students agree that there is something valuable for everyone to learn. Montana Stephens, a Marine Affairs student, originally took the class because her major requires one communications course. In the end, she was happy with her choice and learned a lot about the importance of journalism for society.
“Journalism is something that everyone needs. We are a species that needs communication. We’re all looking for what’s happening in the world so, I feel like journalism really hits that.”
Learning about journalism helps us understand and satisfy the need to communicate. Not only about how important journalism is in general, but also how to successfully create journalistic content.
Montana comments on this type of communicating. “It’s just an interesting perspective to have…getting information out and sharing with people in a certain way.”
The part of the experience that Montana found particularly unique is the mindset she adopted toward her work in this class. “The experience of thinking like a journalist and talking to different people to get the scoop on the topic I was researching.” She felt like that way of thinking was different than anything she’d done before and it was enlightening.
What is it like thinking like a journalist? It’s being hyper-observant of what’s going on around you that might be newsworthy. It’s finding the right people to interview at the right time and coming up with questions to get enough valuable information to create a full-bodied story. One that doesn’t leave the reader scrambling for missing pieces of the picture. It’s always having a backup plan so you can easily adapt to changes and challenges that you will constantly face.
Montana learned to become readily adaptable from dealing with obstacles while working on projects. Being on the other side of her challenges, she offers advice for other journalism students. “Email people that you know are going to email you back and if not, make sure to find a different topic quickly.” She understands that there will always be obstacles journalists will have to hurdle in order to maintain their deadlines.
Many of the skills students have learned in this class can directly benefit them in their future careers. Another Marine Affairs student named Alexandra Michaud chose the journalism class because it would enrich the research she will be doing in her future career. “I figured that I would be publishing and commenting on ocean related activities that would appear in the news.”
Montana plans on using the interviewing skills she learned in this class to have more confidence reaching out to people. She says that will be helpful for her in the future. “Being able to go to people when you need more information and finding out who you need to go to. Because for the different topics obviously you have to figure out who’s all involved and what they can bring to the table.”
Communications major, Kaelin Cegelski, has a more direct connection to journalism. Taking the journalism class and even joining the University’s newspaper staff led her to pursue a writing minor. The writing minor will help her personalize her degree to fit her interests and give her more skills to work with when finding a career.
Her internship with an advertising agency last summer began a journey with technical writing skills. She says that she’s looking forward to practicing several different types of writing and expanding her options for future careers.
“The journalism and the news club were just very different aspects of writing that I hadn’t really dug into yet. So, it was really fun for me to use a different side of my writing brain and I’m hoping that with the writing minor, I can do a little bit more exploring of writing.”
Before taking this class, Kaelin was used to writing in more creative and academic formats. Journalistic writing is much different; a news story features the main point in the very first sentence. In a basic sense, it’s going straight to the most important information first and then revealing more details as the story goes along.
Learning what goes into journalistic stories can also benefit the students in their personal lives. Kaelin was one of these people who would just skim through stories to avoid tedious reading. However, a project in the class known as the ‘blog proj’ changed her perspective.
“I think that was a very eye-opening experience for me. In my personal life, I will have less reservations about opening a news story and reading it through. I think it will help me be a little more informed about the goings-on of the world.”
Another part of the class that students valued was when it came time to workshop each person’s feature story. Each workshop day, there would be a couple stories that everyone had read and commented on beforehand. In class, everyone would talk about what they felt like was working in the story and what wasn’t.
Montana said, along with many students, that this was her favorite part of the class. “To have everyone coming together and picking up on what other people are picking up on in someone’s piece. It really shows how other people perceive your work and how you look at other people’s work.”
The experience was eye-opening for many students. It allowed them to see everyone’s perspective at once; both the differences and similarities. Some noted that it helped them feel more comfortable with their writing since everyone was so professional and helpful with their comments.
Kaelin says the workshopping process made her more open to receiving suggestions on her work.
“To put everyone together and see that a lot of the things that I was saying were also being said by other people kind of made me realize that yes, my perspective is valued but other people’s perspectives can be just as valuable. That overall really helped me trust the process a little bit more and be able to let people look at my work and know that what they’re saying is just as important as what I think.”
The introduction to journalism class had a variety of student majors and perspectives. Despite having different motivations, each student was able to leave the class feeling satisfied with what they’d learned. The students all agreed that they will hold onto their journalism skills to enrich their future careers and personal lives as successful adults.
