Getting Into the Groove

The Spring semester is finally starting to get on a roll, and the homework, studying, video watching, and screen staring is in full swing. I have never been much of a fan of online school, but with the COVID19 pandemic flip-turning student and university life we all had to do our best to adapt and work with what we got. Outside of the constant headaches produced by sitting a foot from a laptop screen all day, I must say online school does have some pros outside of its cons. Participating in school remotely has allowed me to create my own schedule, and has given me a great amount of flexibility in how and when I get my work and assignments done. Being a full-time worker alongside being a college student is no joke. I definitely have had a very tough time in the past balancing these two important roles in my life, especially pre-pandemic. Although I personally do prefer in person learning over remote learning, online school has allowed me to work full-time and be a student at my own pace and ease.

However, I am enjoying the structure of this class so far this semester. I think that journalism works well for an online course, as many news stories, articles, and journals are posted online in this day and age of technology. In these first weeks of class I have been getting to know my classmates, my instructor, and the format and expectations of this class. I am very excited to see the work that will be produced by everyone throughout the semester, and learn more through my peers about the world and their own individual thoughts and passions through our forums and blog postings. I also am excited to learn and explore more about myself, as well as grow my writing skills. To do this, I established the two beats I will be focusing on in my blogs and twitter posts. I chose to focus on art and activism, as these are my personal life passions as well as very reflective on my current and future majors in school. Art is a huge part of my life, and making a difference in the world through activist work is also a goal of mine in life. Art and activism go together in my future career path of working as a museum curator and advocate for artists who belong to minority groups.

This week in class we read, analyzed, and asked questions based upon the textbook reading "What is Journalism For?" I really enjoyed this detailed reading because of the way that it took many different approaches to the uses of journalism. The reading explained how the purpose and mechanisms of journalism have changed overtime based on our society, like all things in life do. I feel like this reading provided us with plenty of information and multiple cited opinions, but also left us with the freedom to create our own interpretation of the usage of journalism and how it can be used. I look forward to learning more in the weeks to come!