“Those who can't do, teach.”
This unfortunate expression cannot apply less with the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. As I sat slightly overwhelmed but eager in the sessions, I realized that these lecturers were really experienced, both locally and globally. It became painfully obvious to me by the end of the first session that they had come to seriously enlighten and educate us about journalism. Even more surprising was the intense discipline of the students at the convention. These kids were seriously hardcore. I sat in that first class, satisfied with my perfectly professional notebook and pen. I felt that, with my glasses perched on my nose, I looked every bit the serious journalism student. Oh, I was so young and naive then.
Suddenly, a boy who looked no older than 14 took the seat next to me. He pulled out a sleek Mac, powered it up, and logged onto the Internet. He then proceeded to whip out his Palm Pilot, upon which he jabbed notes onto the entire 45 minutes of the session. I shrunk into my seat, feeling so amateur with my ancient pen and outdated paper.
Besides the educational (and apparently embarrassing) sessions, the campus of Columbia itself is worthy of praise. For a high school student from suburbia America, the large lecture halls were a refreshing change and was a chance for me to experience a typical college environment. The comfy seating also did much to soothe my haggard, aching self after miles of trekking and climbing countless flights of stairs. They also provided a place for me to mourn the sudden decline of my lovely open-toed wedges, who suffered from the torrential downpour.
That hectic Wednesday afternoon we arrived, we all ran straight to a Hamilton classroom, bustled in, sat down, and then realized (several minutes later) what we had done in horror...we were sitting in an Advisers' class. Hello, embarrassment!
Following that, I attended a session about the culture war over citizen journalism; the speaker lectured adamantly against the dramatic increase of blogging “journalists”. Contesting established media versus the blogosphere, he declared citizen journalism as 'merely amateur hour' (yikes). My final session of the day would bring me to another classroom, where we learned about the possibilities in the job market for journalists; opportunities included ethnic, online, and niche publications. And while you could tell that Steve Baker (the lecturer) loved what he was doing, I wasn't learning much amidst his distracting anecdotes and funny pictures. It also didn't help that, throughout the entire session, I wanted to turn around and punch a girl for being incredibly obnoxious and rude.
Bright and early on Thursday morning, I arrived at my first session barely awake (I nearly got mowed down by a cab crossing the street). Take It From The Times was about how we could grow as writers through reading The New York Times. Really, the only thing I remember was how delighted I became upon receiving a bunch of materials; a mini notebook, a pen, a fold-out cover page, and a small packet of noteworthy Times articles. That basically kept me occupied all class. At 10am, I checked into my next class, Crossing Cultures. While utterly long and slightly boring, the speaker (Marco Mulcahy) was established internationally, and for good reason. He lectured about the importance of objectivity and discussed how many Communist governments controlled their country's media.
Headless Body in Topless Bar; the sensational name of my next session gave no indication to the 45 minutes of pain I was about to endure. Extremely crowded and noisy, the session was frankly, a mess. The speaker had not an ounce of mirth or happiness to her, stomping about with a seemingly perpetual frown on her face.
Upon returning from lunch (a fabulous Cuban meal on Broadway), I headed to my next destination, Working in Broadcast News. Marcy McGinnis, former CBS News senior vice-president, seriously knew her stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed the session not only because of Marcy's friendly candidness, but also because I discovered something important; I'm clearly not meant for the broadcasting world. Some might have called this session useless to me, but anything that can prompt me to self-discovery is worth the time. The next session (aptly named How to Break into Journalism) also proved to be worthy. Michelle Falkenstein, a freelance journalist, stressed that experience in any paper is important and that, like any other passion, you should start with small steps (such as working for smaller, local papers). I also really liked this class because she lectured specifically on the steps you should take when sending in your clips to potential employers; most of the other speakers used vague, general terms.
Friday morning came much too quickly, and I mournfully battled the bitter cold on my way to Columbia. Because I had woke up late, I wasn't able to catch the 8:45 session, and spent that time instead schmoozing in the ever-pretentious Starbucks and devouring overpriced breakfast sandwiches. 9:45 found me at Not Just Ink on Paper, where a bubbly Sandy Woodcock taught me little. I honestly think I sat there counting down the minutes as she chattered on about how the future of journalism lay in digital media. Like I didn't know that already. Our final session of the convention (tear) was Rising to the Top, in which the entire Editorial Journalism class attended. We all saw examples of award-winning school papers throughout the nation (well, most of us...Pat Ross definitely dozed off at one point (o: ). While this was an awesome chance to see other papers, I left the session slightly depressed at how The Sentinel pales in comparison to these papers.
But hey, it's not like that can't be improved. There are so many little things we can do to drastically increase the quality of our paper, including:
- Engage our audience; give our readers an outlet so they can contribute to the paper (broader variety of news, article/photo submissions?)
- Create an online photo source; open up an online photo gallery (flickr, photobucket, etc.) that would allow PHS students to contribute their community photos – some could potentially be printed?
- Table of contents; need I say more?!
On that looooong bus ride home to good ol' Pembroke, I realized that I would miss New York City. Yes, I was thinking more about the 5th Avenue/Times Square escapades, subway-riding fun, and the hotel dramas, but part of me would be missing the Columbia sessions. I truly learned a lot and overall, traipsing about the campus and attending the lectures proved to be a very worthy experience. But a word to the wise for future Columbia-goers: Don't wear open-toed wedges.
This unfortunate expression cannot apply less with the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. As I sat slightly overwhelmed but eager in the sessions, I realized that these lecturers were really experienced, both locally and globally. It became painfully obvious to me by the end of the first session that they had come to seriously enlighten and educate us about journalism. Even more surprising was the intense discipline of the students at the convention. These kids were seriously hardcore. I sat in that first class, satisfied with my perfectly professional notebook and pen. I felt that, with my glasses perched on my nose, I looked every bit the serious journalism student. Oh, I was so young and naive then.
Suddenly, a boy who looked no older than 14 took the seat next to me. He pulled out a sleek Mac, powered it up, and logged onto the Internet. He then proceeded to whip out his Palm Pilot, upon which he jabbed notes onto the entire 45 minutes of the session. I shrunk into my seat, feeling so amateur with my ancient pen and outdated paper.
Besides the educational (and apparently embarrassing) sessions, the campus of Columbia itself is worthy of praise. For a high school student from suburbia America, the large lecture halls were a refreshing change and was a chance for me to experience a typical college environment. The comfy seating also did much to soothe my haggard, aching self after miles of trekking and climbing countless flights of stairs. They also provided a place for me to mourn the sudden decline of my lovely open-toed wedges, who suffered from the torrential downpour.
That hectic Wednesday afternoon we arrived, we all ran straight to a Hamilton classroom, bustled in, sat down, and then realized (several minutes later) what we had done in horror...we were sitting in an Advisers' class. Hello, embarrassment!
Following that, I attended a session about the culture war over citizen journalism; the speaker lectured adamantly against the dramatic increase of blogging “journalists”. Contesting established media versus the blogosphere, he declared citizen journalism as 'merely amateur hour' (yikes). My final session of the day would bring me to another classroom, where we learned about the possibilities in the job market for journalists; opportunities included ethnic, online, and niche publications. And while you could tell that Steve Baker (the lecturer) loved what he was doing, I wasn't learning much amidst his distracting anecdotes and funny pictures. It also didn't help that, throughout the entire session, I wanted to turn around and punch a girl for being incredibly obnoxious and rude.
Bright and early on Thursday morning, I arrived at my first session barely awake (I nearly got mowed down by a cab crossing the street). Take It From The Times was about how we could grow as writers through reading The New York Times. Really, the only thing I remember was how delighted I became upon receiving a bunch of materials; a mini notebook, a pen, a fold-out cover page, and a small packet of noteworthy Times articles. That basically kept me occupied all class. At 10am, I checked into my next class, Crossing Cultures. While utterly long and slightly boring, the speaker (Marco Mulcahy) was established internationally, and for good reason. He lectured about the importance of objectivity and discussed how many Communist governments controlled their country's media.
Headless Body in Topless Bar; the sensational name of my next session gave no indication to the 45 minutes of pain I was about to endure. Extremely crowded and noisy, the session was frankly, a mess. The speaker had not an ounce of mirth or happiness to her, stomping about with a seemingly perpetual frown on her face.
Upon returning from lunch (a fabulous Cuban meal on Broadway), I headed to my next destination, Working in Broadcast News. Marcy McGinnis, former CBS News senior vice-president, seriously knew her stuff. I thoroughly enjoyed the session not only because of Marcy's friendly candidness, but also because I discovered something important; I'm clearly not meant for the broadcasting world. Some might have called this session useless to me, but anything that can prompt me to self-discovery is worth the time. The next session (aptly named How to Break into Journalism) also proved to be worthy. Michelle Falkenstein, a freelance journalist, stressed that experience in any paper is important and that, like any other passion, you should start with small steps (such as working for smaller, local papers). I also really liked this class because she lectured specifically on the steps you should take when sending in your clips to potential employers; most of the other speakers used vague, general terms.
Friday morning came much too quickly, and I mournfully battled the bitter cold on my way to Columbia. Because I had woke up late, I wasn't able to catch the 8:45 session, and spent that time instead schmoozing in the ever-pretentious Starbucks and devouring overpriced breakfast sandwiches. 9:45 found me at Not Just Ink on Paper, where a bubbly Sandy Woodcock taught me little. I honestly think I sat there counting down the minutes as she chattered on about how the future of journalism lay in digital media. Like I didn't know that already. Our final session of the convention (tear) was Rising to the Top, in which the entire Editorial Journalism class attended. We all saw examples of award-winning school papers throughout the nation (well, most of us...Pat Ross definitely dozed off at one point (o: ). While this was an awesome chance to see other papers, I left the session slightly depressed at how The Sentinel pales in comparison to these papers.
But hey, it's not like that can't be improved. There are so many little things we can do to drastically increase the quality of our paper, including:
- Engage our audience; give our readers an outlet so they can contribute to the paper (broader variety of news, article/photo submissions?)
- Create an online photo source; open up an online photo gallery (flickr, photobucket, etc.) that would allow PHS students to contribute their community photos – some could potentially be printed?
- Table of contents; need I say more?!
On that looooong bus ride home to good ol' Pembroke, I realized that I would miss New York City. Yes, I was thinking more about the 5th Avenue/Times Square escapades, subway-riding fun, and the hotel dramas, but part of me would be missing the Columbia sessions. I truly learned a lot and overall, traipsing about the campus and attending the lectures proved to be a very worthy experience. But a word to the wise for future Columbia-goers: Don't wear open-toed wedges.
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