PALESTINE — Another semester has come and gone. It's amazing to think I've been at UT for three and a half years now; the time has certainly flown by. Next semester will be my final one as a Texas Longhorn student, and pretty soon I'll have myself a bachelor's degree. The relative absurdity of having that bachelor's degree in journalism aside, it'll be a nice accomplishment for me. Graduation is in May, and pretty soon the university will be getting even more money from us as we pay for graduation regalia. Since I've made it a kind of tradition in this column, it's time to run down this past semester and reflect on the classes I was enrolled in.
News Editing: My second to last journalism class I'll ever take at UT was a good one, taught by a fantastic professor named Doug Warren. A career journalist, Warren is a former employee of The Boston Globe, where he served as editor of the metro desk among other positions. He knows how to write, he knows how to edit, and most importantly, he's got real world experience that he brings to the class. You can't really learn journalism from a textbook anyway, but with Warren, that was certainly true, as we were often given true stories and situations from his life, including the time a gorilla escaped from the zoo. Harrowing stuff, folks.
Theories of Mass Communication: I will forever remember this class because it was at 8 a.m. I'll be the first to tell you I'm not a morning person, but getting up for this class was a struggle. When your alarm goes off at 7:15, there really isn't much motivation to wake up and get ready to go to school. This was especially true when the weather cooled off and getting up so early meant braving chilly temperatures on my walk to school. With that being said, I only missed two days throughout the course of the entire semester, one because I chose not to go and the other because I overslept. The class itself was interesting, albeit a bit slowly paced. Dr. Dominic Lasorsa certainly knew the material, but it's insane how many technical theories and ideas there are when it comes to the field of mass communication. You'd think communicating is the simple exchange of information or ideas, but trust me, it's way more complicated than that.
Earth and/or Space Science: Oh yes, this class was just as ridiculous as it sounds. Although it has and/or in the title, we focused on the space portion, and discussed everything from popular astronomical figures to theories of extraterrestrial life to science fiction. Fortunately, I knew a lot of the material from the astronomy classes I've taken in previous semesters, but it was the science fiction part that was the most fun. The class was more about critical thinking than retaining factual information, which made for a worthwhile experience, because it allowed us to analyze a myriad of theories on extraterrestrial life, including some that are pretty outlandish and absurd. The structure of the class was a bit difficult to deal with at times, as the professor often put a ridiculously large amount of information on each of his powerpoint slides, filling up each slide and making it look almost like a wall of text.
Children's Literature: This was probably my favorite class of the entire semester, and had quite the impact on me. As the title suggests, the course involved the study of children's literature past and present, including the different types of children's books, what makes them effective, and an analysis of some of the greatest works of children's literature of all time. Dr. Amanda Williams, whose day job is as a librarian at one of the public libraries in Austin, is one of the most intelligent people I've ever met, and knows more about kids books than you could imagine humanly possible. The class not only gave me a nostalgic feeling as we relived some of the books I read when I was younger, but also inspired me to pursue children's literature as an area of research when I head to graduate school (more on that later). To top it all off, I've also decided I'd like to write a children's chapter book, much like “The Tale of Despereaux” or “The Watsons Go to Birmingham.” Wish me luck.
So, there you have it. One more semester down, and only one to go in my undergraduate career. I may cry. But, not really.
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Robert Rich is a senior journalism major at the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from Westwood High School in 2006. He can be reached via e-mail at robert.rich@mail.utexas.edu
Columns
Reflecting on my UT Austin fall 2009 semester
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