Breathe!! Breathe!!

Lauren Mulkern

Breathe!! Breathe!! It won’t be so bad!
This is what was running through my mind before I entered the critique at Columbia University.
I attended a three day convention for Journalism in order to learn beneficial things that I could bring back to the Pembroke Sentinel.
Seeing how Pembroke got torn to pieces last year, I was very nervous about this year.
Luckily, we were complimented head to toe. We are known for our little mistakes that are very noticeable. However, we are working hard to improve this situation.
The biggest problem the person who was critiquing us had been the little mistakes. Fortunately, these are simple to correct and we are well on our way to being awarded the Newspaper Crown.
Due to a late arrival, I did not attend any classes on Wednesday. We missed the first two classes all together and felt awkward when I tried to enter a class during the third session. After lunch, I attended the critique which was very beneficial. The critique ran late and instead of rushing to the last class, myself and other members of the newspaper decided to discuss what to fix in the future.
On Thursday I was eager to learn. I attended the For Editors Only Class. I expected a lot out of this class and was semi disappointed. However, I did learn a lot of childish ways to control the newspaper staff. After being bored for approximately 45 minutes, I was feeling very tired. This led to me going to the wrong building for the Modern In-Depth Reporting Class. This was disappointing because I was looking forward to it. However, I decided to study the map and figure out what to do for the next classes so I would not get lost again. Controversial Issues was very productive. It made me want to start writing about controversial issues. We are very fortunate and are eligible to write about these things. Other states are not so fortunate. After a heads up from my advisor, I decided to go to Blogs that matter. He informed me that we would be writing blogs in the future so I thought it would be a good decision to attend this class. Unfortunately, this was a very boring class and I did not learn anything new. My favorite class out of the whole convention was Working in Broadcast News. It was a very successful class and I am eager to get into that field in the future. I have always been interested in broadcast journalism. However, I was apprehensive because I was not very educated on it. After attending this class, I realize this is something I really want to think about doing in the future.
The first class I attended on Friday was It’s your Opinion: Get It Right! It literally put me to sleep. It officially wins the most boring class. After a few late nights in a row, you need a class that is entertaining. This was the complete opposite. I decided to take a break after this class because I was so tired and need to recoup. The next thing I attended was the CSPA’S top crown review. This showed all of the schools that won awards and how awesome their papers were. I will be honest, I am jealous.
This Convention was so helpful to me and the Pembroke Sentinel. I am very eager to put the things I learned into action.