I was just sitting back, thinking about my semester at NBC and how the journalism department is lacking at UDC. Here I am, sitting at a conference room table at NBC along with other media students from Howard University and American University...it was intimidating. I dreaded those times that our instructor would babble with us about the types of equipment and software's being used at our institutions because it was noticeably foreign to the students from UDC. Students from AU would discuss their gadgets that they've used and what projects they've completed with the entire media department. I among other students from UDC would sit back at sea, wondering what the hell they were talking about and why we were deprived of these sort of opportunities. Then my light bulb shined brighter...duuhhh, that's why they pay more money than us, these schools can afford to provide these opportunities to their students and UDC cannot and I'm fine with that. However, the instructor liked to discuss the activities, events, and opportunities that were happening locally and I later learned that on many occasions, UDC was always offered the equipment and software's that NBC had to donate and were always unresponsive. These donations are being utilized by other local institutions to expose their students to experiences and from that, opportunities that we (media students) are deprived of ; I can't seem to make since of it, can you?
UDC has a television station that their journalism students have never stepped foot in; does this make sense to you? I was in Aruba last week and our hotel casino caught on fire. Of course, TV crews were out of the scene and I ran into one crew from channel 14 who appeared young and humorous. We began conversing and one of his colleagues began filming me and I began to act as if I was doing a news story. My close girlfriend who accompanied me on the trip and holds a communication degree from Central State went on to do her news story which was extremely different from my own. Another girlfriend said "she did better than you." I noticed that and it kind of went in one ear and out of the other but she has also been exposed to different learning resources (Central State vs UDC). I have taken a public speaking course at UDC; however, she has taken a course that is just for broadcasting and news reporting. You would have thought that it would have been part of the curriculum in the news reporting course that they offer here at UDC but IT'S NOT...just like the broadcast journalism course that finds its way onto the list of required courses for journalism students is never available...I don't even think that it exist, it just looks good!
Make no mistake about it, this is not to bad mouth UDC's journalism department but just to build awareness about the little tid-bits of issues that we as students encounter when being deprived of opportunities that are not hard to take advantage of (i.e. being responsive to obtain equipment for media students). Im just saying...step your game up!
Jocelyn, thanks for putting words to your frustrations about UDC's Journalism program. I am sure that many other college students would say the same thing about their own programs when comparing them to other schools that they see as having more resources.
ReplyDeleteBut, I think that this is always the first arguments that many take when it comes to talking about what needs to be changed in education... throw more money at it! While in some cases, this can be true, in others, it's more about the way that the staff, and the students utilize the resources that they already have. One of the things that all of us who are hoping to work in any aspect of the media creation understand that the technology is getting smaller, and cheaper.
The competition for jobs is getting more fierce, and your future bosses will be looking to you to do much, much more than your counterparts, with MUCH, MUCH less.
So, while students from other schools may be able to say that they've worked on the most blown-out switcher and television studio that's out on the market now, what happens when they walk into that television station in the back-hills of Missouri who's studio is made up of a light on a broom, a camera that's 15 years old, and a switcher that hasn't worked since Clinton was in office?
This is interesting, because i always wondered how they were preparing the broadcast journalism students here at UDC. i was curious about that, because i have been in the tv studio here many times. and i have yet to see a journalism student in there. UDC needs to take better care of the students that are enrolled in this university. Although our tuition is cheaper than other colleges, we should still deserve education that is equivalent to other private and public institutiona.
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