Being a Journalist

“I am in way over my head and I have no idea what’s going on,” was what I thought today after lunch, when my Journalism course began. The morning had been fairly low-key, with few speeches of welcome from the university president and the mayor of the city, and then a regular-seeming German class where everyone was pretty much at my level. But as soon as I walked into my journalism course, I realized something here was not quite right. Everyone looked significantly older than me and everyone’s German was significantly better than mine (and when I say significant, I mean really that they were absolutely fluent). Turns out, almost everyone else in the class was a practicing, working journalist in the real world. My two years of journalistic experience didn’t hold much ground with people actually working for TV channels.

“We’ll focus primarily on writing articles in this class,” our instructor said. (Actually, he said: we’llfocusprimarilyonwritingarticlesinthisclass. I have NEVER heard anyone speak as fast as he did, which unfortunately meant that I only understood about 40% of what he said)

Well, that’s great, I thought, since my written German is about at a third grade level. At a stretch.

When our instructor dismissed us for break, I literally thought I might die. I understood nothing of what was going on. I was the worst out of everyone by about four hundred times. I had no idea how I was going to survive the next weeks.
Thankfully, though, my positive mindset kicked in about then. I remembered that I learn really quickly and that, even if I can’t catch totally up, I can at least significantly close the gap within the coming weeks. I remembered that it actually doesn’t matter if I don’t know what’s going on, as long as I try my best and turn in articles every week, since the class is only graded pass/fail. I remembered that I’m not here to be the best, but rather to learn, which means that being the worst is GREAT because that way, I can learn the most. I also remembered how many classes I’ve started at very bottom only to end up in the upper midlde by the end.

When I went back for our evening class (yes, the journalism course is so intense that, once a week, while all the rest of the students have a sport program, we get class again! Makes me feel right at home) I was far better prepared. I told the instructor that I was sorry that my German wasn’t as good as everyone else’s, but that I would try my best to keep up. My comprehension of his incredibly fast speech went up to about 60%, which was a huge jump. And, best of all, he explained exactly what he needed from us.

An article a week about something that’s going on at the Sommer Uni. In journalist jargon, an event story. No problem! We did those back in freshman year.

Blog entries about whatever we feel like. Also, not a big deal. I’ll get my creative juices flowing and send it to our instructor ahead of time so that he can check the spelling.

A TV package made and filmed with the film students. As if I didn’t do one of those a week all quarter in 322. And, I don’t even have to worry about filming/editing – all I have to do is write the story.

And that was it. That is the extent of my torture in the next three weeks. Coming from a Northwestern student used to a life of crazy stress, one or two things due a week is incredibly low-key. Even if it’s in a language that I don’t really speak. :-)