This is definitely not how I imagined my second year of college would go. I planned for internships, new opportunities, and a chance to expand my horizons and have new experiences. Now, I'm living in my parents' house with my three younger siblings, working retail at a hospital gift shop. I am frustrated with how this semester turned out, especially since I felt like I was on track to really accomplish things this semester and upcoming summer and get my foot in the door to kickstart my career. However, I am proud of myself for what I have accomplished during this challenging semester. I told some impactful stories on this blog and improved my journalism skills even with the challenge of remote learning.
Reflection
My favorite section of the semester was most definitely the audio unit. I want to go into audio/radio journalism in the future, so I really enjoyed getting to practice these skills and apply them to a topic I am passionate about--climate change.
I did both of my audio stories from this semester on different aspects of climate change, but my favorite one of the two was the one about youth climate activism. I felt that this story was more effective told in audio format rather than just doing a written story. The passion and emotion in the voices of the people I interviewed is captured in the audio and makes the story more engaging.
I also did my multimedia slideshow on youth climate activism to complement the audio story. I used photos I took from previous climate protests along with photos of the Sunrise Movement at Loyola, which helped explain and visualize what the group was trying to accomplish.
Even though the Earth Day strike was canceled due to the pandemic, the story still helped spread the word about youth climate activism and hopefully led a few individuals to look into getting involved in climate activism.
I also enjoyed the photography unit. I really liked playing around with different shutter speeds and depths of field and seeing what kind of photos would result from it.
My favorite set of photos from this semester. The first photo has an aperture value of 5, while the second photo has an aperture value of 20, which brings the carpet in the background more into focus.
I definitely improved upon my skills using a DSLR camera. My confidence has increased greatly when I am using a DSLR and I know exactly what settings I need in order to get the picture I want.
The most challenging section of the course for me was the video unit. I struggled a lot with my lack of equipment and only being able to use my phone for capturing video. I have used Adobe Premiere to edit video in the past, but I used video shot on an actual camera, not just on my iPhone. It was a little challenging to adjust audio and get steady shots just using an iPhone camera.
This semester was not my first experience making infographics, but it was my first time using Canva to make one. I have used Adobe Illustrator and InDesign in the past for other courses, but I thought I would try out Canva to see if the quality is comparable to that of Adobe products. I was very happy with the ease of use and the simplicity of the website and thought it was definitely a good alternative to other expensive programs.
Overall, I have very much enjoyed getting to tell stories and report on climate change and other topics this semester. I am passionate about sustainability and climate change and hope to eventually report on it professionally one day, and this blog was good practice for writing those climate-specific stories.
(P.S. If you are interested, some of my friends from my hometown who are also journalism majors and I started a newspaper to report on our city during the pandemic! Check out our newspaper, The Strange Times, here!)
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