My first semester of News Media Practicum was nothing that I expected. I entered the class expecting to be sitting in a classroom, listening to lecture on boring subjects. Once the class started and we got into the groove of things I quickly realized that I was completely wrong. It has been an extremely educational experience, while still managing to be fun! The in class discussions alone were extremely enlightening and shed a lot of light on not only the broadcast industry, but also how different people think. Whether the discussions were simple conversations or heated debates (which we had our share of), it showed that everybody truly thinks differently and also showed how people respond to different forms of interaction. For example, whenever we found ourselves in these heated debates, it was interesting to see that when someone raised their voice, the other person would raise their voice louder. Or if someone tried to speak calmly and someone raised their voice at them, they would keep calm and eventually just stop arguing. Knowing these sorts of things are crucial for a Communications major because we will constantly be interacting with people and we have to understand how people respond to different things.
Outside of the classroom, Practicum acts as a sort of on the job training, only with students instead of a real job. It provides perfect practice for learning all different areas of the Communications department. I participated in the Southern News Network and the Interlachen. I learned a lot from both of them. While working on Southern News this semester, I gained a lot of experience in how to write a brief story that covers all of the necessary points, while still staying short enough for an announcement. I also learned a little bit about the equipment while working. I learned how to use the switch board. I got the opportunity to work on one of the shows doing this and basically control who was on camera at what point. It was pretty simple overall but it was definitely something new as well. I also learned a small amount about the teleprompter. I learned this, not from operating it, but watching Nya operate it at the most recent shoot and watching problems get solved in the process.
I think that the biggest learning experience that I’ve had this semester was with Interlachen. I found that this group of people was extremely welcoming and willing to embrace the new kids and help them learn. Right from the beginning I took up taking photos for them so I learned how to operate the cameras. I had used similar cameras before so I knew a fair amount already, but it was definitely great practice and background knowledge. I also learned how to set up for portraits during the first day of portraits. Shannah and I were responsible for setting up since we were the people working the first portion of allotted time, so I observed and helped where I could. The biggest learning experience that I had here was learning how to edit photos for the yearbook in Lightroom. I had never edited any pictures before and it was completely new to me. However, Shannah has been extremely helpful and a great teacher and I’ve even edited photos for many events on my own now! Overall I can honestly say that semester one of Practicum has been a great experience and has taught me a lot about many different parts of communications!
