I would consider myself a traditionalist when it comes to my opinions of the world of journalism that I have studied. During my four years in high school, I was an active member of the yearbook staff. I loved every second of those years. While I was only enrolled in basic Journalism classes, I felt that they were more like real offices with deadlines and meetings. I loved having to go around to different events to snap key moments on our Cannon camera. I thoroughly enjoyed drawing our layouts by hand, editing the pages, and organizing the photos. However, my senior year – the year I became editor-in-chief – our procedures for producing our book had changed, and were moved from the traditional paper layouts, to an online website through our representative publisher. I was the last person to jump on board with the change. I disliked everything being online and digital, and missed the physical capabilities of working by hand. It was then that I realized how much technology will change our whole world.

This semester at the University of North Florida, I am beginning my basic Journalism courses (finally!) Needless to say, I am a much more involved and caring student than I was a year ago with my less-interesting gen-ed classes. My first lesson of my new educational career was this: Technology is expanding and is changing the media world. Newspapers are now accessible online free of charge. Most Americans get their daily news through one line updates on their smart phones. The basic media channels of radio, print, advertising and film are expanding to digital and on-the-go. More is being expected out of the former channels, but even more is expected from the digital providers of news and entertainment. They have to be better and faster. And so consequently, we as Journalism students must adapt ourselves and our learning abilities to this new changing world. Hence, this, my very first blog. Not everything is based on print anymore. It’s characters and digital knowledge stepping in.

My goal by the end of this semester, and as I continue to “blog”, is to become much more familiar with the new mediums that journalism is progressing into, and how to use these new technologies to my advantage throughout the remainder of my educational career, and in my not-so-distant professional future. I am overall excited about this semester, and my classes, but I am even more anxious to dive back into a journalism environment!!!