Some Advice for New College Journalism Students
When I started taking journalism courses at a local college in the mid-1980s, I was under the impression that I was well-prepared to be a college-level writer for the campus’ student newspaper. I had studied the basics of news writing, reporting, editing, and page makeup for two years in high school, and I had been a section editor during my sophomore and senior years. I even earned A’s consistently in my journalism courses. So imagine my surprise, two years after I had graduated from high school, when I stepped into my JOU 1100 classroom for the first time and felt as though I had actually studied just enough to get by in class but had much more to learn. It’s possible that I felt that way because I had added Prof. Townsend’s class two days into the Fall term (my Pell Grant had just been approved and I needed to become a full-time student, so I added Basic Reporting and Introduction to Radio and Television to my schedule) and was nervous. Perhaps I was keenly aware that do