JTC 210 reflective essay

When I first heard of JTC 210: Newswriting, I didn’t think that it was going to be an interesting or fun course because I wasn’t planning on going into the news writing world. I was more interested in the world of marketing, design and advertising. Now that I have completed the course, I believe it is essential for every journalism student to take. Over the 16 weeks, I have greatly strengthened my interviewing skills, grown my confidence, learned how to structure each story, gotten better at breaking the ice with new people and gained a sense of worldliness without ever leaving campus. 

 

I came into JTC 210 with four years of interviewing experience through my high school’s yearbook course. Because it has been about two years since I conducted interviews, I knew I was going to be a bit rusty. This course was just the refresher I needed. I remember interviewing students for an in-class assignment about midterms. I recognized that familiar feeling of interviewing someone and learning new things about people. Interviewing was like muscle memory and I was able to pick right back up from where I had left off. Now I feel much more confident when going out on interviews. 

 

Speaking of confidence, I gained so much confidence and comfortability within myself through this course. This is a combination of skills learned within the classroom, from growing up and from experiences outside of the classroom. I realized this upon reflecting on my semester. I was able to recognize that I had grown to go out and do things that I most likely wouldn’t have done last semester. 

 

It was in those reflections that I discovered that I had inadvertently learned how to break the ice when talking to strangers. I believe this is a byproduct of refreshing my interviewing skills and finding a new sense of confidence. This can be seen throughout my new friendship with my classmate, Rowan. Making new friends in college requires knowing what to say and the confidence to do so. As it turns out, JTC 210 taught me valuable skills for my future in journalism and vital social and interpersonal skills for whatever my life has in its future. 

 

One of the specific journalism-based skills I learned was how to structure a story. This particular skill is something I lacked and struggled with throughout high school and into college. The main issue was that didn’t know how to start each story, for fear of saying the wrong thing. When I was taught all of the different story models, I found that that worry was eliminated. Each model told me when to say what. This was a huge step in the improvement of my writing.

 

The last takeaway I have from this course is perhaps the most profound. I feel as though I have a greater sense of worldliness, even though we never left CSU’s campus. This is most likely because I was researching stories and events every week for stories to write for class. I was more aware of what was happening not just in my community, but in my country and around the world. This is so important when connecting local stories to national news and global headlines to stories within the community. 

 

Overall, I am very thankful for every moment of JTC 210. Even if I didn’t know it at the time, I was learning skills for both my career and for life. Now that I have completed JTC 210, I understand why it is a required course for all journalism students. I cannot imagine moving forward without the skills I have learned in this course. Each of them has and will continue to shape me as a journalist and as a person.