On a college campus, you will be exposed to many experiences in which you might not know you signed up for. As these moments pass, you gather memories of sad, annoying, strange, and exhilarating times that you will most likely share with others.
From pep rallies to sporting events, club rushes to theater performances, and art galleries to student crimes, there is never really a dull day on your campus. And, a great way to get these interesting stories out to more than just your circle of friends and family is by sharing them as a member of your student newspaper, being able to share these experiences along multiple platforms with ease.
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Being a part of a college news staff is actually an exciting job! Even Clark Kent would have enjoyed it before starting for the "Daily Planet."
The stories you will cover can, and will, range over a series of topics meaning that you will become heavily involved on the campus in which you will attend. And although the same can be said for high school papers, the experience with a college paper just leaves you feeling more professional. Especially if you are working towards entering that field for your future career.
A lot of people will probably think that working on a newspaper is stressful and tiring work full of deadlines and long hours; when in fact, these experiences are actually what make the work fun. You learn from deadlines how to accurately cover stories in short periods of time, how to conduct interviews in non-awkward fashions, and how to drink enough coffee in order to persevere through your longer days of reporting.
From what I have learned since writing for my own college paper is that there will always be exposure to mistakes and shortcomings along the way. Whether the mistakes be in typos, grammar, photography, or page design, the room for error is there, but you just have to embrace it. If anything, learning about the mistakes you made, and how to prevent them is half of the fun. Besides, even professional publications make errors on a daily basis, so it really is nothing to be embarrassed about.
Because seriously, if every paper you made was perfect, where would you find yourself learning anything new?
And, as stated above, writing is only a portion of all of the amazing things you can do with a newspaper. Being on a news staff gives you variety in the tasks that you can do in order to help your paper grow.
Along with writing, you can take part in the editing process. If you are able to pride yourself in the ability to write well, then you can use your knowledge of writing to help your fellow staff members find the mistakes that they have made in order to help them avoid common mistakes in their next articles. Your contributions in this field will only help your paper as a whole.
You can dabble in photography. Although this is not like Peter Parker trying to obtain pictures of Spider-Man every day for work, you still find ways to enjoy your time. They say a picture tells 1000 words. Take so many and you can talk a lot about one subject. And not only can you take photos, but you can learn how to use different software in order to utilize photos to their fullest potential to give view to the story at hand.
You can also try your trade in page layout and design. As fun as writing stories may be, actually creating the physical paper is a fulfilling experience. Bringing your own work to life is really what I've enjoyed most so far.
The business aspect of your news team is also an interesting one. You can work in advertising to help your organization raise money to keep the business afloat, so that you can continue doing great things in the community. In fact, the majority of money that professional publications make comes from their advertisement department and all the work that they do.
Another large portion of your work with a student publication may involve the inclusion of social media. As technology is advancing, people have come up with all sorts of ways to get their voices out to the public, such as: Snapchat, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Pinterest, to name a few. Through your own use of social media, you can pinpoint your stories and photographs, or even videos, to the audiences that you want to view them, and they can even be shared by others in easier fashions over the internet.
Another great fact about the usage of social media is that you are not limited to just local audiences. Virtually all college papers have websites and social media outlets that easily broadcast their stories not just in America, but around the world. Your news coverage of a local, up and coming student artist could make ground in Europe and become the next big thing if you cover your story just the right way. Or you could even become the person to accurately identify information on a person who was misidentified in breaking news in your community after it goes viral. The same goes for anyone or anything that you write about.
The fact of the matter is being a part of an accredited news organization is helpful to up and coming writers, photographers, digital designers, or social media gurus. The platform, itself, is so vast that your opportunities for getting your name out in the world are almost endless. You just have to get involved, go out there, and tell your great story.
