It's the last morning that everyone has been dreading since the camp started and we began this incredible experience. Nobody wants to leave. Sure, we might want to go home for a few days and catch up in our sleep in our own beds, but then we want to come immediately back and continue learning everything we can about journalism while still having the time of our lives. We've been here for six days, and here is a summary for each.
Day One - Awk-ward! We were all squeezed into a somewhat tiny room, made even tinier by the food that was also crammed into the room. The people who had brought us slowly dispersed, leaving all 17 of us to fend for ourselves. The ice quickly melted, though, as we were separated into teams and forced to learn our way around campus by find scavenger hunt clues scattered throughout the university. We went to bed later that night knowing that this was about to be a week that we would never forget.
Day Two - Anticipation! We couldn't wait to get started, and my team did get started with perhaps the most time-consuming aspect of the entire camp-broadcast. However, becayse we worked with Keona, who is one of the most amazing and patient graduates on campus that worked with us, we still had a blast creating a newscast, bios, and PSA required for this medium. We finished the day by painting some canvases that Dr. LeDuff (the professor in charge of the camp) created for us. I didn't expect to enjoy this, but it actually turned out to be just as fun as any other part of the camp.
Day Three - Eager! That was how we felt as we prepared for our second medium. My group got radio, which like broadcast, had an amazing graduate helping us the entire way through-Sara. She relaxed us completly and showed us how to make a busy experience not stressful at all. We all had a blast doing our LIVE radio show, which was probably the most critical aspect of everything we would end up doing. That night we watched an amazing cartoon movie that everyone enjoyed immensely.
Day Four - Tired! Finally, we were fealing the consequences of not getting a large amount of sleep the previous nights, and we partially dragged ourselves to breakfast. The group I was in had newspaper that day, therefore, we ended up with Dr. Jenkins, who again was truly an amazing professor to work with. I teamed up with a girl in my group Zoe (sorry that I don't know how to put the two dots above the e!) to work on an article for that day. After we had finished everything, the entire journalism camp went bowling that night, which gave us time off campus and an environment created just for fun.
Day Five - Zombies! How we all managed to make it through this day I will never know. Photography was what my group had to do that day, and it was a blast since we were able to go around to the many camps on campus and photograph what they were doing. Everyone else finished the day staying up late except for me. I ended up accidentally falling asleep at 7:00 that night and not waking up until 6:30 the next morning, so I ended up getting quite refreshed.
Day Six - Sadness. We're all very depressed that this is our last day here. We are still managing to have fun, however! I'm just returning to this blog post after taking about an hour off when I was just halfway done. We had to go film some segways for a package being put together, which was almost like finishing with broadcasting-where I started.
In about five hours, our parents will be arriving for the final banquet, and we will then leave campus for now. Will we return someday? Who knows. I do know that many of us will still remain good friends after this experience is over, though.
We've learned so much and had such a good time, but for now, we bid camp adieu.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Life on the USM campus
Looking back over the week on campus, I realize that although I was incredibly lost at first, I've learned my way around campus (for the most part) and loved it. Everything from the journalism assignments to the room I stayed in provided some level of high quality; this truly was a perfectly amazing experience.
One of the first things I noticed about the USM campus was the trees. They are scattered throughout the university, providing shade from the sun and vegetation to observe. They perfectly portray the fact that this is a Mississippi campus: the nature proves that this isn't totally an urban jungle.
The people here are another factor that made this campus amazing. Their friendliness is contageous, and they really inspired me to give my all while working on the assignments. Whether I interacted with the professors, students, or other campers, I felt welcomed and involved in everything going on throughout the campus even though I wasn't currently going to school here.
Fun isn't something that I honestly expected while participating in the activites, but now, it would be harder for me to think of a time this week that I had a bad time as opposed to the many good times that I could easily write down. Playing Just Dance 2 in the game room, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, and playing a huge amount of card games are just a few of the fun experiences I had here on campus.
So, would I consider coming here for college? Absolutely! Right now, they don't have everything that I'm looking for scholastically, but if they were to start offering the classes that I need to take, I would immediately come if for only a semester.
One of the first things I noticed about the USM campus was the trees. They are scattered throughout the university, providing shade from the sun and vegetation to observe. They perfectly portray the fact that this is a Mississippi campus: the nature proves that this isn't totally an urban jungle.
The people here are another factor that made this campus amazing. Their friendliness is contageous, and they really inspired me to give my all while working on the assignments. Whether I interacted with the professors, students, or other campers, I felt welcomed and involved in everything going on throughout the campus even though I wasn't currently going to school here.
Fun isn't something that I honestly expected while participating in the activites, but now, it would be harder for me to think of a time this week that I had a bad time as opposed to the many good times that I could easily write down. Playing Just Dance 2 in the game room, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, and playing a huge amount of card games are just a few of the fun experiences I had here on campus.
So, would I consider coming here for college? Absolutely! Right now, they don't have everything that I'm looking for scholastically, but if they were to start offering the classes that I need to take, I would immediately come if for only a semester.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
My favorite journalistic (yep, that's a word) medium.
During our week at this journalism camp, we students get to experience nearly every form of media related to journalism including broadcasting, radio, and photography. So far, the only two types of media that I have participated in are broadcast and radio journalism, but of the two, radio proved to be my favorite. Even though it was live, it was more laid back and didn’t have the overwhelming pressure that broadcasting in front of a camera had.
While in broadcasting, you experience the stress of rushing around trying to accomplish all of your many tasks before your very soon deadline; in radio, you can slightly relax and simply prepare a script for when you go live on the air. Also in broadcasting, you have to worry about how you look in front of the camera while giving the news. Radio instead only focuses on how you sound and not on any aspect of how you look. Broadcast journalism requires you to have cameras, microphones, editing software, and many other types of equipment that are cumbersome to carry around from scene to scene. In radio, all of the equipment stays in the same location, allowing you to be able to get news to the public faster than broadcasters.
Now that I’ve compared these two forms of journalistic media, I’ll share a little bit of my personal experience with each. Broadcasting was the first medium that I was introduced to here at camp. Within a period of about four hours, my group was responsible for scripting a news package, filming the package, brainstorming a public service announcement, filming the PSA, and filming bios. Meanwhile, the footage still had to be edited by some of out supervisors, which took up a large amount of time, as well. It was definitely extremely fun to put together, but it was also very overwhelming.
In radio, we weren’t nearly as busy in the same amount of time. In fact, we didn’t do much for the first hour or two. However, we soon got to work writing our scripts for the topic or PSA that we were going to discuss on live radio. We then had to practice our techniques to make sure that we sounded natural as we spoke. It turned out to be fun and not nearly as fast-paced as broadcasting.
As today comes to a close, I’ve managed to get a taste of what newspaper journalism is about, and while it is definitely just as fun as the other two, it can prove to still be very difficult. Tomorrow will allow the rest of my team and I to experience photography journalism. I’m looking forward to learning even more about journalism in the days to come.
While in broadcasting, you experience the stress of rushing around trying to accomplish all of your many tasks before your very soon deadline; in radio, you can slightly relax and simply prepare a script for when you go live on the air. Also in broadcasting, you have to worry about how you look in front of the camera while giving the news. Radio instead only focuses on how you sound and not on any aspect of how you look. Broadcast journalism requires you to have cameras, microphones, editing software, and many other types of equipment that are cumbersome to carry around from scene to scene. In radio, all of the equipment stays in the same location, allowing you to be able to get news to the public faster than broadcasters.
Now that I’ve compared these two forms of journalistic media, I’ll share a little bit of my personal experience with each. Broadcasting was the first medium that I was introduced to here at camp. Within a period of about four hours, my group was responsible for scripting a news package, filming the package, brainstorming a public service announcement, filming the PSA, and filming bios. Meanwhile, the footage still had to be edited by some of out supervisors, which took up a large amount of time, as well. It was definitely extremely fun to put together, but it was also very overwhelming.
In radio, we weren’t nearly as busy in the same amount of time. In fact, we didn’t do much for the first hour or two. However, we soon got to work writing our scripts for the topic or PSA that we were going to discuss on live radio. We then had to practice our techniques to make sure that we sounded natural as we spoke. It turned out to be fun and not nearly as fast-paced as broadcasting.
As today comes to a close, I’ve managed to get a taste of what newspaper journalism is about, and while it is definitely just as fun as the other two, it can prove to still be very difficult. Tomorrow will allow the rest of my team and I to experience photography journalism. I’m looking forward to learning even more about journalism in the days to come.
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