Check it out! Batulis now on the WENY website!

Check it out! Melissa Batulis (Class of 2003) is now on the official website of WENY-TV.
If anyone wants to get in touch with Melissa, give me a shout!

Broadcasting Job Fair in Pittsburgh

Broadcasting Career Fair on Thursday, January 6, 2005
Sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters & the Pittsburgh Radio Organization
from 4 to 7 PM
Duquesne University
4th floor Student Union on Locust St.

BLOG! HUMBUG! Some Unfinished Business Before Christmas

MERRY XMAS
BC 601 has come to an end. But we do have some outstanding business. We have three students returning in the spring to complete the “group” presentation. That should be easily completed.

We also have some people still waiting for their outside professionals to respond to their senior projects. I will encourage them to carry through with follow up and attempt to meet the deadline.




We head into the break with holiday & good luck wishes, congratulations and farewells to Amy DalBon & Julie Stolze—they’re graduating early. That’s clearly an edge they have over the thousands of people who graduate in May. I invite them to actively engage in their blogs— I’ll keep the links on the Capstone Blog Weblog page hoping we can stay in touch.

For everyone else heading into BC 602, we will meet outside my office on Friday, January 21 at 11:30 and do the lunch thing to map out the upcoming semester. I would encourage you to visit the BC 602 syllabus and consider doing both the Senior Project Redux and the Alumni Research Paper (despite me offering you a choice).

Happy Holidays!!!

ADDING IT ALL UP

Don't take your capstone grade for granted. While each of you will walk away with exceptional scores on the presentations, it is the Weblogs that make up a huge chunk of your grade. If you were not diligent with your blog, then WORRY.

How I compute your Weblog score?
You can receive 10 points each for each week’s blog (16 weeks). That’s 160 points possible.

You can also receive 20 points for recruiting visitors to the blog pages and another 20 points for your significant feedback and comments offered over the semester. That’s 40 points.

If you have all 16 weeks worth of blogs and have actively participated with feedback and comments, you will automatically receive the other 50 points.

So to reiterate what it takes to get the full points on weblogs, your full participation in the blog assignment. You wrap it up by December 17 and should have16 weeks worth of entries in which you have demonstrated your participation as well as comments and feedback on your fellow students blogs.

If you have failed to engaged actively in feedback and comments, your blog score will likely fall in the 180-200 point range.

If you have failed to complete 16 weeks worth of required blog entries by the end of next week, then multiply the number of weeks you have by 10. That will become your blog score.

Final BC 601 Class Session

Thursday, December 9 is the final County Line for the semester and it's also the final time we meet as the BC 601 class. Amy & Julie will graduate later this month so the BC 602 class in the spring will be reduced to 8 students.

We will meet on Thursday at 2:30 instead of 2:00 to give the students presenting at Laural High School time to return to campus.

We will discuss the status of projects. We'll also spend some time Thursday talking about what you want achieve in the next semester as well as setting up a meeting day/time, etc. You'll also complete the course evaluation.

I wanted to express my appreciation to the students who came to my BC 251/Video Production class to talk about internships. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I believe you helped inspire some of the future capstone students.

I hope the self-reflection and self-assessment aspects of this course have helped you position yourself with career goals as you get closer and closer to graduation. See you on Thursday!

Senior Captsone Presentations on December 8, 2004

Amy DalBon & Julie Stolze will give senior presentations on Wednesday night at 6:30, December 8 in the McKelvey Theater/Lecture Hall in the Campus Center.

Julie actually has her Speech Comm presentation at 6:oo, so come early and get in on that one.

All students, faculty and staff are invited! Julie says her family is bringing cake!

Amy & Julie are enrolled in both sections of capstone this semester as both are graduating this month.

Sarah's Getting Published!

I wanted to send out congratulations to Sarah Ubry and draw your attention to this weekend's edition of The Herald.

Part of Sarah's senior project was to do some enterprising and feature reporting for radio and newspaper. The Herald is suppose to run her profile of a local milkman (yes, it appears the milk is still delivered in some local communities-- great story idea).

So check out the paper this weekend. You can read it online if you have a subscription password. She' feature a two-part radio series later in the week on Digital 88.9 News as well.

Don't forget your blog during the break!

Yo! Don't forget to drop in an entry for your blog at least updating your projects and your semester duirng the Thanksgiving break!!! You get weekly points per blog entries!

PROJECT UPDATES, PLEASE

We’re heading into mid-November. It’s a couple of weeks away from the Thanksgiving break. For BC 601 students it was the final time to pre-register for classes at Westminster. So how was it? Is the reality of finishing college finally sinking in?

Meanwhile, what's going on with your senior projects?
This week in your BC 601 blog entries, I would like you to concentrate exclusively on providing a thorough update (give specifics) on your projects. Don't worry about the career update or the topical news/link. Focus on giving me (and the world) a progress report on your project.

Let the updates begin!

Alex Trebek’s Short & Sweet Advice for Young Broadcasters

I was going through the Sunday Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which has some features on Jeopardy as it pre-recorded shows at the University of Pittsburgh recently. In a section labeled Q&A with Alex Trebek, a recent college graduate in the audience asked him if the game show host could get him a job. Trebek responded by pointing out that he’s been in the business for 44 years. The newspaper quoted Trebek as saying, “When I'm asked how best to prepare, I say get a good education and pay your dues. Start in small markets and work your way up.”

CNN Visitor on Campus

I wanted to back track here and offer my appreciation Meg Camardese for visiting us at Westminster. I’m a bit late on this entry but I wanted to offer some details about our visit with her back on October 25, 2004. She serves as an assistant to Aaron Brown for CNN’s Newsnight with Aaron Brown. She graciously agreed to visit campus for a Q & A session with our students. I’ll try to summarize what you missed if you were unable to attend.
Meg started out of college as a page at NBC. From that she moved into a position as an assistant to Tom Brokaw at NBC Nightly News and then had a brief stint with a subcontractor production company at the Food Network before moving to CNN. She loves the business and had the following advice for students who are passionate about it:

• Remember the value/importance of writing in this business.
• Be prepared to struggle with money when you start out—even if you begin in New York City.
• Double major if you can in areas like political science if you’re interested in jobs at CNN or the networks.
• Do the internships and network with people in the business because it’s a highly competitive business.
• Get involved in the internships and ask to do as much as you can-- don't be shy.
• Be prepared for long hours, but the time flies when you’re covering breaking news.

I could definitely identify all the themes from Dr. B's Checklist for Success coming through LOUD & CLEAR in Meg's comments.