2016 was a crazy year. A U.S. presidential election that was ‘controversial’ to say the least, Brittan deciding to leave the E.U., and Leonardo DiCaprio finally winning an Oscar. However, looking up to the slums of Ellicott complex at the University at Buffalo, as a second semester freshman, I was taking on the freight train, that is college school work, full tilt. I was enrolled in a 200 level English class, focused on film review, in order to fulfill my second level English General education requirement. Whether it was the professor, who I wasn’t quite fond of, or just the general feeling of resentment I had toward the entire formal education system, when it came time to write one of our papers about halfway through the semester, I simply… didn’t. I didn’t forget about it, didn’t turn it in late, or incomplete. Just simply decided to not write it. The interesting thing is, though, is was a response paper on Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious bastards, which is one of my favorite movies. And on top of that I did the rest of the assignments for that class throughout the semester and got very good grades on all of them. But despite the professor reaching out to give me opportunities to hand in the paper late, whether it being out of protest of the class, or the hope my grades on the other assignments would compensate for the missing paper, I refused.
Long story short, I got an F.
This brings me to this past winter. Now ready to go back to college after time off I knew I had to retake an English course to complete the Gen. Ed requirement that I had so ‘proudly’ failed three years ago. Browsing through the never-ending list of courses offered, only one caught my eye. How to Write Like a Journalist. Having always thought about journalism as a potential career path, I figured this would be a good start.
Having a professor who is not a lifelong teacher or academic creates a degree of uncertainty in a class. Some adjunct professors may not have the teaching ability, or resources required to teach a class effectively, however in some cases it may be refreshing. Not being conditioned to teach in a conventional way can open up the class to more ‘outside the box’ methods of learning. In the case of ENG 212 it was certainly the latter. Being thrown straight into the world of journalism, with the first assignment only coming a few weeks into the semester, was a bit scary, but a very effective way to learn. I feel this ‘hands on’ approach is often lost in formal education; where the practice of lecture and memorization usually wins out over trial and error (which in my opinion is the best way to learn any subject).
The workload was enough to be considered fair, but not too much that the quality of work was sacrificed in order to make a deadline. This may be the first course I’ve taken in which I have actually put in extra time on an, already completed, assignment in order to improve the quality. My only frustration is that I had to sacrifice time and effort on some of my assignments for this class in order to complete the excessive amount of work I was assigned in some of my other classes.
I loved the structure of the course. The observation drafts on the assigned readings provided good insight into professional journalism practices, and the professor was very informed on the world of professional journalism (a bit of an empty compliment, given he was a professional journalist himself).
If I could change an aspect of the course I would recommend that more class time would be delegated to discussing our articles; what we felt we did well, what we had trouble with. Overall I really enjoyed the course, I thought the freedom of choosing your own assignments really gave a good indication of how large and diverse the world of journalism really is, and gave students a good introduction into what I would actually be like to work as a journalist.
If I could go back to 2016 tomorrow and write that paper, I wouldn’t.
Diary of a Fourth Year Junior 