Opportunities in college and the real world: One student’s perspective

Cassandra Bauer attends Drake University. She is a junior majoring in digital media production and minoring in graphic design. She recently sat down with SchoolJournalism to answer a few questions that we had. We hope the interview is helpful to both students and advisers.   Q: When you were looking at schools, what was it about Drake that pulled you in? A: I was really focusing in on schools in Iowa because I didn't want to stay in Missouri and be with the same people I spent my high school years with. I choose Iowa because it wasn't completely isolated from home. My grandparents live in Grinnell, and so I get to see them a lot during the school year. That is nice because before I...

Three Hours Recharges Your Program

I have heard of teachers who have had a lot of success with three-day or five-day boot camps, workshops, etc. with their incoming staffs preparing for the new year through ice breaker games, skill building and work exercises. Those are, I’m sure, spectacular for many schools. However, multi-day events don’t work for everyone. These days, there’s more and more that fills a student’s summer:  traveling athletic teams, youth camps, debate competitions, summer school consuming June, family vacations, working summer jobs – the list just goes on and on. A few years ago, I found myself asking my producer and editors, “Do you have one day, just one day to give to journalism?” Appare...

Teaching All the President’s Men to a New Generation

In my news writing course, much of our focus is on interviewing, grammar and AP style. It's more of a skill-and-drill class than any of my other courses, and I sometimes struggle with stimulating or maintaining student passion about the discipline (much more so than, for example, Diversity in the Media, or my other courses that focus on critical analysis via Socratic seminar). Since news writing is a gateway course to higher-level journalism courses, the rigor and focus on skills is important. However, this semester I integrated more historical perspectives and current commentary about the news media to highlight the dire importance of the profession. Resources ranging from the Annenberg C...