Paul Grondahl holds a press conference for SUNY Albany Journalism students at the New York State Writers Institute on March 21st at 2:45 in the afternoon.
Mr. Grondahl is an award-winning writer, reporter, and the current director of the New York State Writers Institute located at the University at Albany, SUNY.
“If you wanna succeed you’re gonna have to put in a lot of work and it starts now,” says Mr. Grondahl.
Mr. Grondahl opened up the press conference by talking about the NYS Writers Institute, which is celebrating their 35th anniversary, and the opportunities that it offers for SUNY Albany students, especially in the area of journalism. These opportunities include writers, such as Patti LuPone, coming in for talks and the students being able to experience the talks for free.
He then took the conference to another level by engaging in career-centered topics with the journalism students.
Picking on students randomly, Mr. Grondahl asked questions about career goals and plans. Following every question, he would give students inspiration and motivation by talking about the experience he has had in relation to the career goal or plan of a student.
“First thing you need to do is start writing and publishing, whether it’s your own blog or internship,” he replies to a student who opened up about the start of her own blog. The student explained how she has written about three articles and Mr. Grondahl advised her to publish them anywhere possible. He recommended sites such as Odyssey Online as an easy way to do so.
“Start establishing an online presence and a paper trail presence,” he replies to another student.
He expands on this advice with this: “Number one, you have to have your own website, blog, Twitter, Instagram… any way to put yourself out there to show employers.”
With years of experience with employers, interns, and specifically the writing industry, Mr. Grondahl used the press conference to inspire the journalism students. He explained how the interns that go out of their way to pitch ideas to employers and evolve on them are the ones that get noticed. Towards the end of the press conference he geared this inspiration specifically towards the journalism industry.
Mr. Grondahl did not want the students to be discouraged by rejection since it is so popular in the journalism industry. “Every day brings new rejection… You will get rejected,” he explained. Mr. Grondahl himself experienced rejection on numerous occasions, but, as he explained, he would never have become an award-winning writer if he let those rejections discourage him.
“The field is shrinking,” he says, referring to the journalism field. “If you say, ‘oh, I’m just gonna coast and chill in my room,’ you are behind the competition.” Mr. Grondahl explained the fact that there are millions of students just like the journalism students sitting at his press conference. If they don’t take action by creating their online presence or paper trail, or completing internships, one of the million other students will take the jobs that these students could have.
