I never wanted to be that blogger who goes on hiatus and then reappears one day to apologize for not writing. Those entries always remind me of a middle school girl who abandons her diary only to sheepishly come back to it months later when she remembers that she's promised herself to write every day.That being said, there is a definite reason for my absence. I started journalism school in mid-August and since then blogging has been the furthest thing from my mind. Most days I come home from classes, reporting, or lectures and want to do nothing other than sit in front of the television. Since the TV is always tuned to cable news, it is sometimes hard to get away from the journalism school world.
The last month and a half has been a non-stop rush of stress, sleeplessness, and school. I work long hours everyday. It's rare for me not to work on the weekends. Being in graduate school is, in many ways, similar to working. I go to pitch meetings. I have editors. I hunt down stories. I work to a deadline that I cannot, under any circumstance, miss. However, in one monumental way, grad school is very different from working. When I get home after putting in my hours, I don't get to stop and relax. There is almost always something that I should be doing just to keep ahead of my workload.
That being said, I do want to document this experience. When I was applying to school, I was disappointed by the lack of blogs and other accounts of being a journalism student. I'd like to record this year (or what is left of it) for that very reason.
I've decided that I'm going to start again. I'm taking my previous posts down and starting anew. Still, I feel like its important to explain where I'm coming from with this blog.
I graduated from a small midwestern college last May. Up until then, I worked as an intern at a television station in addition to interning at a radio station the previous year. I spent much of my senior year stressing about whether I would go to grad school or get a job. When I got into the three grad schools I applied to, I then stressed about which one I should choose. Now I'm at Columbia University, and I believe I made the right choice.
So there it is. From now on I will be writing about the whole experience of being a student from being in classes to working on a beat for the first time. If I do my job correctly, anyone who wants to read this blog will come away from it with a good picture of a year in the life of a J-Schooler.
