I am currently sitting in my Biochemistry in Society lecture, bored out of my mind, reflecting on what I’ve learned three weeks into the fall 2011 semester. For some reason this student presentation on dieting just isn’t holding my interest. Go figure. Things seem much different than they were only two weeks ago. For instance when I started school classes were the last thing on my mind… in some ways they still are. However, this week I have been able to sit through an entire class without thinking about Kedzie Hall or even the Collegian. Week one brought me almost an entirely new staff with a huge learning curve, but the content of the paper has been fairly solid, we’re reporting on things ranging from the weather, to teacher’s salaries, to the Big 12 fiasco.
I’ve really been impressed with how fast my editors have taken responsibility for their duties and taking ownership of their parts of the paper. Things were touch and go for a while, but things are finally starting for really click and come together. We’ve consistently beat deadline for the last two weeks. They all bring such interesting perspectives to the Collegian. I do wish they’d be a little bit more vocal at daily meetings, but I think that will come with time.
On Sunday the editorial board went out to get to know each other a little bit better. What a fun group of people. It was really cool to hang out with them in a non-work situation and not talk about the paper.
More importantly more and more people seem to be coming into the newsroom interested in writing for the paper. I owe a big thank you to the Professors in the A. Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications who have either made writing for the Collegian a class requirement or are offering extra credit for doing so.
I really enjoy working with the new writers and talking to underclassmen interested in writing for the paper. Their energy, in many cases nervous, reminds me of my freshman year.
This week the first project for the my media convergence class was assigned. I’m supposed to make a sound slide and a podcast. (I’ve written news articles, feature stories, made television packages and stand-ups, but for some reason I have never dealt with strictly audio.) The professor gave us the project yesterday and basically pushed us off the deep end and said go make a podcast. I guess it’s time to give it the old college try.
Tim Schrag 