Frustrations…but I still love it

There is nothing more frustrating than have three news briefs to write and every single source is out until Monday when you have a deadline on that Friday.

Luckily, I was able to interview Kenneth Rogers for another story that is due to Dan by Friday. The interview went very well over the phone. At the end, Rogers began to tell me about the way he thinks. He made many great points. He talked about the power of positive thinking. He told me to look at the positive thinkers and the negative thinkers for the next few days. He said I would then see that the positive thinkers get things done. There was quite a bit more knowledge he shared with me, but my notes are back at the office.

I started writing that story on Thursday and will finish it on Monday.

I’m also almost done with my student and alumni profiles for the journalism Web site. It seems like it is taking forever to finish because I have been having trouble tracking down good students to profile. Earlier this week, I interviewed Kameel Stanley, a journalism student at Central that is currently doing an internship at the Washington Post. One thing that really sticks out in my mind is her determination. I think that attitude helped (and her talent for reporting, I’m sure) land that internship at the Post.

My latest project is a campus safety campaign. Dan, Sydnee and I just started on this last Wednesday. I think that I offer a good point of view for this campaign because I still am a student. I wrote the copy for a postcard that will go out to students, but we have more work to do for posters and promotion.

Overall, my internship is going well. I have noticed my writing skills improving. I also am thinking more creatively. I am working with a great people that want to help me as well. It has been exciting.

More projects and an office

Today I was given a Central Endeavors project and a campus safety project. Since today was a short work day for me, they will keep me busy tomorrow.

I also have my own office now. I was sharing with Tracy, but she moved downstairs for her new position. I was pretty excited. Now I can put up a few pictures and not worry about leaving my papers scattered.

Writing

This past week, I’ve been working on a few more stories for Connections and the Reference Point.

I have also been finishing up some alumni and student profiles. The absolute best part of this project is speaking to alumni in my field.

For Centralight, I wrote one sentence summaries about a few books written by CMU alumni. I also finished up the Legacy Scholarship ad.

Dan and I talked about freelance writing and he has inspired me to begin pursuing it again. I started pitching stories to places last summer, but my job eventually took over my life. I am now working less hours and my biology class will soon be done, leaving me more time to work at freelance writing.

Ads, articles and interviews

I’ve decided to make a quick lunch break update on my internship.

Yesterday I saw my ad for the CMU license plates. I was so excited when I saw it. I think I really targeted the audience of Centralight Magazine. Dan and I finished editing the copy for my Gold Membership ad for Centralight and got it to Amy.

Before I left, Dan gave me another ad to do for Centralight. It is the Alumni Legacy Scholarship ad and it has proved to be the most difficult for me to come up with a concept. I wrote the copy and came up with some ideas before getting stuck in a rut. I sent it to Dan to see what he thinks. It helps to have a fresh set of eyes look at something when I get stuck.

It is pretty exciting that I will have three full page ads in this issue of Centralight. I was just laughing yesterday about the fact that I was once planning to major in advertising. I had also considered a minor in advertising. I think that this is giving me great experience and portfolio pieces.

My article for Reference Point about the Vatican archives is finally complete. Dan gave me suggestions yesterday for reworking part of it and I think it is a pretty good story now.

I am also working on student profiles and alumni profiles for the new department of journalism Web site. I was having trouble tracking down some of the younger alumni, so I checked on Facebook. I spoke to one alumni, Khristopher Brooks, on the phone this morning. He works at the Omaha World Herald. It was really interesting to talk to him and learn about his experiences at Central.

There were a lot of great things I wish I could fit into his profile. I think one of the most important suggestions he made for students was to learn more about multimedia and how to gather information for online audiences. I also found out that he reads stories written by journalists that he aspires to be like.

I also would like to note that I have a PRSA mentor now – BJ Whitman and from Hawaii. I spoke to her on the phone once, but a six hour time difference makes regular discussions difficult.

An update

(If you read my other blog, A Step Ahead, this is the almost same post)

My internship with CMU Public Relations and Marketing has been keeping me pretty busy during the day. By the time I get home, the last thing I feel like doing is staring at the computer and writing some more. I definitely need to post more often, so I am going to shoot for posting at least once a week – most likely on Friday since that is my only day off.

Here’s the recent news

- Two of my ad concepts for Centralight Magazine are in the process of being designed by Amy.

- I’ve been writing content for the Department of Journalism and their new Web page. I am currently doing alumni and student profiles.

- The other Web site content I wrote has been sent to IT, I believe.

- I have been doing more work with CMU Welcomes You, putting in the articles, pull quotes and such.

- I  got a copy of the PBS guide containing an ad I wrote – The first hard copy of my work at PRM

- I saw a copy of Connections, a newsletter containing material I wrote about the new education building

- Today I was assigned two more items for the Reference Point.

I would describe my internship as a whirlwind of learning. I am improving my writing skills and getting real experience. It is so exciting. I really like how I get feedback and suggestions from Dan on my work. He doesn’t take an article and just edit it. He tells me what could be better and lets me do it myself. I think that is really helping me learn more.

I interviewed Frank X. Blouin, Jr. for the Reference Point at the Friends of the Library luncheon last month (Sarah was a huge help with coming up with interview questions).  There was an enormous amount of information to sort through. I had to remind myself that I was writing an story, not a report. I had used a voice recorder in the interview and during his presentation about the Vatican archives, so I was able to sort through the information to get the most vital pieces.

Over the phone interviews not easy

Yesterday I came in to finish the diversity web text and the Upward Bound article.

Since I was mostly in need of quotes, I had to wait for a few people to get back with me. I think that is the most frustrating part of the job. I’m always connected – whether it be carrying my cell phone wherever I go, or checking my e-mail more times a day than I can count.

Since I had done the adviser interview Friday, I worked on that while I waited. That interview had gone very well and I had already written part of the article.

I was also able to finish the spreadsheet project given to me by Mark. I also took the time to organize the paperwork. Once I had them numerically in order, I was able to enter data more quickly because I didn’t have to flip back if I thought I had found a duplicate.

Since I had class Monday, I went home at 3 p.m. I then finally got a hold of the girl for the Upward Bound article. I interviewed her, took notes and then put it into the article. I was slightly annoyed while interviewing because there was a lot of noise in the background and that made it more difficult to understand her.

Lesson of the Day: Over the phone interviews can be a pain. Be patient and ask the person to repeat if you think it was pertinent information.

Another day

I really hate it when I get comments that have no relation to anything on my blog. I love getting comments, but when someone posts something like “Busy time,” it gets on my nerves. What did that have to do with anything? Now if they were posting about PR or internships in any field, or even saying something directly to me, it would be cool. Enough ranting.

Thursday I worked on the excel spreadsheet that Mark sent to me. It’s really simple and kind of mindless, but it doesn’t bother me. It will give me something to do when I am waiting to hear back from people or if I get writer’s block.

I have two assignments that are high priority – the Upward Bound one and the diversity poster one. I would have come in today to work on them and get them finished, but I was planning to go to Dow Gardens with someone. She flaked out and never called me back, so I feel like a whole day was wasted, other than the fact that I got my interview done with the academic adviser that had won an award.

Thats fine though because I offered to go in on Monday (and I was sick earlier today anyway and would have had to call in if I had worked today).

Anyway, I better finish packing. I’m heading home for the weekend (where there is air conditioning – it will feel like Alaska compared to my 90-degree apartment!)

Lesson of the Day: Go to my other blog and read this post – I’m sure the guides could teach you a lesson.

Blogging in Relaxing.

I think I like blogging on my lunch break…it’s relaxing.

Tuesday I came up with several different concepts for the Centralight ad, spinning off of one of my original concepts. At the end of the day, he came in and said he really liked my classified ad concept (I’ll post more if we use it). Unfortunately, there are no graphic designers available anytime soon to work on it. So more on that to come.

Dan brought me the page dummies for CMU Welcomes You and I started inserting the ads. That is what I spent the rest of the day doing. Some were very easy to do…and others were huge pains because the ads weren’t the right size.

This morning I finished up a CMUWY article with a quote about academic advising. I will be interviewing an adviser on Friday morning to finish up another article and am waiting on approval for my transfer student article. The Volunteer Center article is in between – I sent it for approval and it was returned with a few changes, but the woman said she might want to make more. Its a little frustrating.

Dan brought me two new projects – adding to an article about Upward Bound and writing the text for a landing page for a web page about diversity posters.

I have sent the landing page text to Sydnee to see what she thinks – whether I need more or less – because she has been with the project since the beginning.

I have not started on the Upward Bound article since I am waiting to hear back from a source.

This morning Dan and I talked about me working an extra day. It looks like I’ll probably come in on Fridays, since I have class Monday and Wednesday afternoons. But I won’t be in tomorrow since I had already made plans to go to Dow Gardens with a friend.

Check back later to read about the rest of my day.

Celebrate

This is a recent post on my other blog, A Step Ahead. As it relates to my internship, I will also post it here.

It is my lunch break at work still so I have decided to spend it writing…I often tend to forget that I get a lunch break. I enjoy my internship so much that I usually just munch on a sandwich while I work on a project. Today, I left my computer for lunch to celebrate. I went home and made an amazing chicken quesadilla. 

This morning I received the final edited draft for the web site copy that I wrote myself. It was assigned to me last Thursday. I was given a little detail about what was needed.”Keep it fresh,” I was told by Ryan, the marketing associate. Fresh? 

I spent the remainder of Thursday researching for the project. I generally only come in on Tuesday and Thursday but this was a project with an impending deadline. I came in on Friday, the day in which I spend my mornings watching the previous night’s Grey’s Anatomy and Lost on ABC.com, and worked on the web site copy. 

“Fresh,” I thought. “Keep it fresh, and write tight.” 

After I wrote my first draft, I counted how many times I used certain words. Since I was describing where each link on the web site lead, I had used the word ‘find’ nearly 20 times! ‘Learn’ was he runner-up, being used nine times. 

I went through and edited, thinking ‘how do I make this one sound different’ and ‘what word can I replace here.’ I replaced ‘find’ with different words in ten different instances. I used a thesaurus to help me use different words. 

I reread that copy so many times, editing and tightening up my writing as much as I could. Finally, when I could read through without changing things, I sent it to Dan for editing. At the end of the day, he brought in the edits. Other than some AP style mistakes, I had done good. 

I came into work on Monday (my usual day for sleeping in) and made the edits. I sent it to Ryan and he said it was great. Following my suggestion that we add a certain link, I wrote another short piece of copy and submitted it to Dan. He and Mark, the director of publications, were to edit it one final time.

This morning (Tuesday), Dan told me that he went through and edited it and gave it to Mark. Mark read through the first few and said it was fine and he wasn’t going to read any more of it. Dan basically said he was impressed. So am I…writing for a web site is harder than I thought it would be. 

Dan had Sarah, another writer, take a look at it. Then I sent it to Ryan so he could get it to IT.

I can’t wait to see the website. I’m sure I’ll post it so I can point it out and say, “I wrote that!” Yeah, its just web site copy but it is exciting because it will be used on CMU’s website. 

Lunch is over. Back to work.

Don’t settle for the first concept…

Today I went into work in the morning to finish up editing the website copy so I could talk to Ryan about it. I suggested to him that we add the library to the list of links because the library so I ended up having to write a short summary for Park Library and Clarke Historical Library.

I also completed one concept for the Centralight ad and created a second. I sent both to Dan for him to review. One ad focuses on the how being a Gold member saves you money, and the other focuses on how good it makes you feel to support your alma mater.

I sent Dan the website copy for him and Mark to do final edits before it goes to IT.

I also read up a little bit more on the man that I will be writing a story about for the Friends of Libraries luncheon.

Since I had finished up my end of the project, I headed home at 11:30 a.m. I don’t usually work Mondays and I have an BIO 101 exam today, so there was no sense sitting around with nothing to do.

Lesson of the Day: Don’t settle for the first concept. Always generate as many as ideas as possible before developing the good ones. If I hadn’t brainstormed so much, I would have settled on my first concept. It seemed OK at the time but it was much better when I had many ideas and sorted the strong from the weak.