Until the second semester of my sophomore year, I had never had a class I could honestly call difficult. Sure, I had to work to get good grades, but I got good grades. I was beginning to settle into a complacent streak of not really needing to study much to pass a class easily.
Then this semester arrived. I found myself taking three writing-intensive courses in one semester, and another class online. One of those writing courses, on News Reporting, has been the most difficult but also the most truly challenging and growth-inspiring class I have taken.
This is the only college class to nearly bring me to tears over the weekly article assignments, and the one in which I received my very first C. My original article looked like it might be bleeding to death from all the red ink between lines and in the margins.
I realized early on that I could choose to either hate this class or learn some valuable lessons from it. And deciding to learn has improved me greatly in my chosen career field, journalism.
I found that criticism and correction are inevitable in this business, and a good reporter takes this with a calm manner and realizes that every mistake is an opportunity to learn and to make the work better. There is a time and place to get upset or defensive about people’s comments; that place is not the newsroom
I learned to take initiative in finding stories when I was afraid an article would be failed for not meeting the standards of ‘news’. I actually received the best grade on that article out of any this semester, but I still was proud of my ability to go out and find my own story. I learned to let criticism build me up and make me a better reporter, not break me down and discourage me.
Fortunately for me, and contributing to this learning experience, was the fact that the professor allowed rewrite of articles if we were not satisfied with the original grade. Working through my shredded original, I learned much about the proper format, tone, and objectivity a news writer must cultivate. I also learned that the AP stylebook I purchased as a textbook for the class is actually meant to do more than act as a coffee-mug coaster on my desk.
Even though this class has been the most difficult and demanding of my entire college career, I think it has also done the most to develop me as a professional in my field. So I’ll thank the professor for the honest grades, the incisive revisions, and the paper that requires a field transfusion. All of them have made me a better reporter, and maybe a better person as well.
