Skills in the Classroom Transfer Straight to the Real World - Sara Nahrwold - MediaBizBloggers

Even though I am not in school right now since its summer, I am still using the skills and knowledge that I learned my first year at Ball State University. The first summer after my freshman year, I landed an internship at a newspaper. I couldnt believe it! I never imagined I would have an internship after my first year of college. Nonetheless, it has been a great experience so far for me. My internship is at the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel for the features department.

Ball State requires journalism students to have oneinternship during their four years, but encourages more than one. I assumed my first one would be later on in my college years, but I am thrilled for the current opportunity at hand.

One of the biggest skills I learned at Ball State so far is research. Most of my time spent at my internship is researching. I spend time researching people, bands, choirs, etc for features. Although it takes up a lot of time, I have learned a great deal about many different subjects. I definitely have to give credit to one of my journalism classes for preparing me so well in the area of research. I took a five week class and it was solely focused on research. Some of the things I learned include: the fastest way to research, the most accurate way and how to tell a credible site from one thats not. I use those tools on a daily basis at my internship.

Another skill I must credit Ball State with is interviewing techniques. I also took a five week class that was just focused on interviewing. This class was taken after the research class so the first step was to… research. After researching, I then learned what questions to ask to start off from the research I had gathered as well as ask quality follow up questions. Through this class, I was able to sharpen my writing and listening skills to be able to more accurately do both at the same time. I also improved the skill of responding to the interviewees answer with another question. Through this class, I am now able to apply the classroom skills to the real world duties of my internship.

If I hadnt taken the journalism classes I have so far my first year of college at Ball State, I dont know how prepared I would have been to tackle an internship after my first year. Even my supervisor at my internship who is the features editor at the newspaper has told me multiple times how I am more capable than the paper expected me to be. I am more capable than I ever expected to be after my first year of college.

Ball State has definitely prepared me for the real world and I still have another three years at the university. Im excited to see what else I will learn as well as other opportunities I will have during my remaining college years.

Until next time, carpe diem.

Sara Nahrwold is a sophomore journalism major at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She is from Ossian, Indiana, close to Fort Wayne. She has written for theBall State Daily News, the campus newspaper for the features section. She also has a weekly column for the paper entitled “Nahrwords.” Sara can be reached at snnahrwold@bsugmail.net.

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