One of my jobs on campus, this job, is essentially the title of this blog post: Writing for Media at Hope College. However, when I titled that post I wasn’t planning on talking about my job as a student blogger, though it is relevant.
Right now I’m enrolled in a communications course (Comm 255) called Writing for Media. In this class, we learn the basic skills to construct news and feature stories. We also learn how to properly use social media sites like Twitter.
My professor, Dr. Doshi, instructed us to choose a “beat” that we will write about for the entire semester. A beat is a theme or area to focus on. I’ve decided to write about the Campus Ministries here at Hope.
Because of this, I have started a blog where I will report on various stories throughout the semester on things that go on at Hope involving our campus ministries. I have a Twitter that you can follow as well.
This class intimidates me. After all, the journalism world is cut-throat. But I know that when I come out on the other side, I will have so many new writing and media skills to take me further in my career.
I think it’s really cool how we focus on one area the entire semester, almost as if we run a column in a newspaper about that subject. We also have weekly news quizzes, where we’re asked to write about something in the news that happened relating to a random topic like sports, international affairs, politics, arts and culture, etc. In addition, we are being quizzed on the AP Style Guide, which is really useful when it comes to media writing.
If you’re at all interested in journalism, blogging, writing, or media for a career one day, I would highly recommend this course. While it’s been only two weeks, I have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do in media as well as news stories.
Check out the blog and the Twitter to keep up with what I’m writing about Hope’s Campus Ministries this semester!
Thanks for reading,
Brooke