Yesterday, today and tommorow...

Journalism is defined as being a profession of writing and communicating, formally employed by publications and broadcasters for the benefit of a particular community of people. I personally see it as hard work and challenging the thought of an individual in order to equip them with knowledge thus giving countries a better chance of new developed media. That is why I have a passion for it so much; one gets to learn new skills but yet can use their personal creativity to set academic work right. Through my first year in Rhodes University, I have travelled an unforgettable journey which you are about to be informed on.

It was a sunny Monday morning and I had just arrived into my residence, the trees were swaying, birds chirping- the scenery was just too beautiful to be true. My breath was taken by the silence and the isolation of the place. But all changed when I started making friends and attending lectures. In term for we started a course on blogging. At first I had no clue what blogging was although Rod Amner had mentioned it once during his lecture but I did know that it collaborated with genre. As time passed slowly I started to adapt the structure of blogs and the reason why people have them. In my eyes I do believe that blogging is a form of journalism because individuals do research on the topic they want to write about, and then display it on the blog. The readers of the blogs interpret the message in any way they want to and if they feel the urge they can comment on what has been said. The information produced is useful depending on the type of person reading it.

The theme “surviving first year” limited the way I can think and show my writing skills. It is a killed topic because we basically got it every term and no one could actually expand there knowledge on this particular topic. The strength of this theme is the fact that pupils had to engage with other first years to get the feel of there survival and if there social skills were perfect they would make friends during profile piece interviews. For example, I got the chance to meet new people like Chris, one of my interviewees and engage with him on a personal level. The weakness about it was that other important topics like rape, robberies etc could not be approached because all students want to talk about is the hardcore partying that went on the previous night. I really wanted to tap into other topics but the blog produced that opportunity for me to speak about anything which was of importance to me and that I fancied. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate myself as an 8 because when I came here I knew nothing at all.

The journalism department extracted the hidden potential within me. I was once dull and had no formed focus within in me what so ever but as I took time to do my vacation work and attending lectures I learnt so much. I grew very streetwise and aware of reality for example I use to carry my credit card very confidently around everywhere with me until one of my friends tipped me about pocket pickers in Grahamstown. That is when I started carrying a small amount of cash with me. Professionally my vocabulary became sharper and I learnt how to have excellent time management.

This term was different because blogging was a new form of work that was introduced to me. Pre-planning had to be done before performing a task and working in groups was something difficult to do because personalities clashed. Working in a group did not go so well for us because we had bad time management and unfair distribution of work. I feel like I have/had put enough effort including blood and sweat into my work over the term. I lived up to the journalism department’s expectations. My motto was why choose the sky as a limit when one can go higher. I have too much pride, there is no space for failure. Yes, it was not easy dealing with assignments, tests and all that jazz but had to be completed, got completed. During tutorials I would not talk much when requested to but when it came to listening- I payed special attention with anticipation, especially when our tutor spoke about hyperlinks and backtracks. When our blog was created, I thought of majority of the things existing in it because I’m so fashion crazed. I got my ideas from magazines and television. During research, I learnt that research over the internet is not as useful as it may seem and that plagiarising is a risk one should not be willing to take. The Universities system is to High-Tec for crime.

My writing skills are more impressive then they were before and I actually take the time to unpack a topic before explaining it. Genre opened up new doors for my work and education. This course has prepared and geared me for more things to come. I’m more relaxed and confident now, looking forward to what my future holds.