My 1st Semester Experience

First semester has been interesting, to say the least. Upon coming here I knew that I would have a lot more freedom and independence, but it still stunned me how in charge and in control i was. I got to choose what I did, when and what I ate, what time I came home, etc. It was new and, most importantly, liberating - I loved it. I'm also really glad I joined a FIG because it let me have people I knew in my classes and we could all help each other. It created for us a bit of a floor family. I've met some wonderful people and interesting characters who I know I won't forget.

I have also managed to keep my grades at a level that I wanted them to be, and since I wasn't always successful with this in high school due to pure laziness and indifference, it is a big deal to me. I am also glad to have been able to learn so much even through FIG class and J1010 about convergence, as it is what I will be doing for the rest of my life. I have not decided to change my major, as many people have told me I will likely do at some point in my college career. I'm sticking with journalism and am currently toying with a few minors in my head.

I'm also glad I was able to get involved in the university outside of class by earning money at the Catalyst Cafe - luckily I got it before the hiring freeze - and being part of your Gillett residential recycling crew with Trupti and Austin. I've also had fun decorating for the Christmas party and being a part of other floor activities. It's been real. Thanks for a good first semester!

A great semester

I just wanted to take a post to thank each and every one of my Figlets for a great semester! I am truly impressed with the discussions we had in class, as well as their thoughts on this blog. This is a very very talented group of students. I look forward to seeing what path they decide to go down in the future. Whether it's Convergence journalism or something completely different, they will succeed without a doubt.

Thanks for a great semester!

Carla

Better late than failing FIG class

Sandy Davidson, a Communications Law professor, spoke to our FIG and other journalism students two months ago (I know, what a timely blog piece, right?) and the issues discussed are still churning around in my brain, ranging from the election to the nature of news.

Davidson shared with us a few stores from Newsweek about Sarah Palin and other key figures in the election that really made me question the nature of news today.

As journalists, it is our duty (or desire/obsession/ life choice) to cover the news.

However, when the stories being reported on become merely gossip about celebrities serving jail time and corrupt politicians, can one really call that news? Sure it is new, entertaining information that satiates that little gossiping monster inside of all of us, but it is certainly not news.

News is relevant information to our lives. News is also whatever the audience wants to read about. But when the audience wants more Britney and Paris, should the news business ignore that, especially when newspapers across the country are dropping like flies?

I believe the answer is no, even though part of me feels like the gossip is tainting the newsy-credibility just a little bit.

Another interesting trend I have noticed is that while various news-media outlets are covering more entertainment stories, girly gossip magazines are covering an occasional issue more pressing than the latest addition to the Jolie-Pitt clan.

Maybe someday there will just be one massive media group: a place where People, Time, CNN, and Cosmo are one and the call their product news. I ,for one, hope that day isn’t tomorrow as I am not sure I could handle that in addition to my biology lab final.

Take Home Message

So, it's that time of year. The first time home. I know exactly how it's going to go.

Going home will be cool for the first couple of days. My family will love me. There'll be hugs, Christmas five days into it and lots and lots of homemade food. Awesome.

And then in that space between the end of the holidays and the time we go back, some cold Saturday morning in January, my Dad will sit down with me on the couch and drop a seemingly innocuous question into the silent room.

"So, what did you learn in your first semester?"

Now, just like any test question, you'll do fine with this if you have an answer ready to roll, like you've thought about it for a while and could sum it up three sentences or less. Old man just wants to know if the tuition dollars are returning on investment.

The problem is that I probably can't do it in three sentences or less. I've learned a lot this semester about journalism, convergence, writing and just being a reporter in society in general.

I learned a lot about convergence journalism through my FIG class. I've learned that technology is hurtling like an asteroid at the sleepy planet that is conventional, Cronkhite/Hearst/Woodward and Bernstein journalism. We're feeling the pebbles raining down as it descends on us through the job layoffs at your local broadsheets and the sudden popping up of news Web sites as the only viable media in a number of markets, but its going to rock our world very shortly here. There will be a day in our lives when newspapers will be as obsolete as typewriters, I now believe.

That said, I'm currently working for a hard copy newspaper, although it has an online version, the increasingly common escape pod. The lessons I've learned on the job there are ones you'll learn regardless of your medium and they are essential. For space, I'll sum it up like this: call everyone as early in the morning as possible, expect that they will take all day to get back to you with comment, be willing to ask stupid questions to verify basic, essential information and be the most friendly, flexible guy in the room. After a couple dozen issues with the Maneater, I can tell you that you have to do these things or the story won't happen. And then someone above you will be mad. When you do them and do them every time, you can pull off stories people need and then other folks are happy. The Maneater, like any paper, is a lot better place when people are happy.

So, the take home message: work hard in FIG, get on the Maneater ASAP and work hard there and make notes for every assignment you do about what you could've done better.

I think that's a pretty good answer for that day on the couch.

Yay for late work!

At long last, a comparison of the Google News website with the CNN website.

My first reaction after looking at both of the sites was the comparative lack of advertisements on Google News. CNN has a substantial amount of screen space devoted to ads and links to partner sites, whereas Google News has no advertisements on the main page. 

That's about the only place I can say that one site is clearly better than the other. From here on out, it's mostly differences of style and personal preference. Whereas CNN has a variety of news media, including video and podcasts, Google is devoted exclusively to printed stories. Naturally, since Google itself isn't a news organization, it has compilations of stories from various sources for each pice of news, while CNN is limited to its own view. However, CNN also offers more than just news stories. It also tracks weather, stocks, and a few blogs. 

Also, CNN uses popularity as a way to organize articles more than Google News does. Google is more topic-centered organization, while CNN has most of its stories organized by popularity. Personally, I prefer Google's topic-based, no-ads setup. 

When I first got to Mizzou, I didn't know anyone, where anything was or even what I was really doing here.  I've wanted to be a journalist for a while now and people had told me this was the place to go if you wanted to do journalism. Now, after just one semester here, I am wondering if journalism is what I actually want to do.  The only reason my parents were willing to pay out of state tuition was because of the reputation of the School of Journalism and now I'm thinking about changing my mind.  Although J1010 is an annoying class, I think I learned so much about what journalism is and what journalists actually do because many of the speakers had real world experience.  I would tell incoming freshmen to be open to change.  College is so different from high school, especially if you are leaving your home, family and friends for an extended period of time for the first time ever.  Even if you think you are positive you know what you want to do after school, at least consider some other options if anything else interests you.  The structure, people and environment might not be similar to what you are used to but change is often good.

Heed My Advice, Figlets

To be honest, the first few weeks that I was at Mizzou, I was utterly convinced that there was not a single cool person here. I missed the familiarity of home, and people whose sense of humor I understood, and the big city feel of Dallas, Texas. So my first piece of advice to you would be to not have preconceived notions about anything or anyone. It totally killed my first weeks here, and let me tell you, your first weeks are extremely valuable for making friends and exploring what sorts of organizations you might be interested in. Be optimistic, and be proactively friendly. If you want to make friendships and connections that will last, you have to actively go out and ask people to go and hang out with you places. Make a plan to stay actively involved in things like clubs and going to the rec 3 times a week and stuff, because if you don't set goals like that in stone, you won't do them after a few weeks of feeling swamped in school and making excuses to sleep in or stay on facebook for hours. 

School takes studying. Well, you may take a few blowoff courses that require no effort outside of class, but in your gen ed classes, if you don't study, you won't pass. The great thing about the academic side of college is that it really is true that it is relevant to your life, much more than the monotonous crap they fed you in high school. And with all of the studying you will be doing, you will suddenly find yourself actually remembering the things that you learned in class all semester, not just until the test. Having knowledge stick is a nice feeling. 

Dorm life is always interesting. Keep your room clean so that your roommate does not hate you, and keep personal boundaries. You do not want to make enemies on your dorm floor, because you cannot avoid them. 

Case and point, your first semester in college will be an awesome experience if you don't slack off of your goals and you are optimistic about the outcome.