Looking back on my college career at Georgia Southern University, I have to say that I have made significant progress in the fields of public relations and journalism. Moreover, I feel that I have undergone a significant amount of growth. When I reflect on my freshman year, all I can really do is shake my head and laugh. I came to college thinking I wanted to be a physical therapist, despite having a lack of interest in virtually anything involving science. Little did I know, my freshman year would end up being wasted.
Surprisingly, my grades weren’t that much of a factor. In an attempt to keep this reflection simple, I basically did not understand how the system worked. Perhaps I deserve a little slack. Neither of my parents graduated from college. My mother earned her associate’s degree and dropped out of college to marry my father. I can’t help but think that she still regrets that to this day. I’m not saying she regrets marrying my father, but I’m confident that she regrets dropping out of school after only two years. My father never attended college, but he managed to establish himself financially after years of back-breaking hard labor. Take all of this into consideration–I did not understand the concept of taking a certain number of credit hours to progress. This is my fault because I didn’t have a care in the world that year and made no attempts to stay on track or declare a major. I signed up for the required core classes and ended up dropping four courses: two in the Fall and two in the Spring. This set me back drastically, and it wasn’t until I finally got my head on straight that I realized the significance of this setback.
I began my college career at East Georgia College on the Georgia Southern University campus. Ideally, students should take 15 hours each semester. If I would have acquired 30 hours my first year, I would have been able to transfer to GSU after one year at EGC. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I ended up spending two full years at EGC before i got my head together. The time had come to declare a major, so I began researching different programs to see what was most appealing to me.
People have encouraged me to pursue writing or journalism since I was a child, so I decided to look into those fields. I love the field of journalism, but unfortunately there’s not much money in journalism unless you work for a prominent newspaper, magazine, etc. I proceeded to research the field of public relations, and I immediately knew that this was going to be my major. Public relations professionals are required to be strong writers, but I also loved the concepts of advocating for a brand/organization and managing crises.
It was brought to my attention in my Intro to Public Relations course that many journalism majors are taking public relations jobs because they are better writers, so I figured picking up a minor in journalism would work to my benefit. I genuinely feel that it has, but it did present some problems. Public relations and journalism are in the same department at GSU, so courses required for both my major and minor do not count both ways, or as my adviser told me, “You cannot double-dip.” Despite the aggravation this issue caused me, I feel that it immensely contributed to my professional development. My Intro to Journalism and News Reporting and Writing courses counted towards my major instead of my minor, and my Law and Ethics of Mass Communication course counted as one of my theory law courses instead of counting for one of my minor requirements, so I had to enroll in journalism electives to make up for those missing hours in my minor.
The electives I chose were Broadcast News, Online Journalism and Opinion Journalism, and I am grateful that I enrolled in those courses. Broadcast News helped broaden my intellectual capabilities in the field of communications by showing me how to write in broadcast format, as well as how speak on the radio and television. Online Journalism was a very valuable course because I learned the fundamentals of HTML, and the class was similar to a legitimate news room. Opinion Journalism gave me a chance to express my thoughts and opinions regarding various subjects, and I feel that the required weekly presentations helped improve my public speaking abilities.
In short, I feel that I have come a long way since my freshman year. Although my freshman year was wasted as far as academics are concerned, I learned exactly what not to do in college. It is pleasing to see how much of a turn-around I made over the last couple of years, and I have attained so much valuable knowledge that I will take with me into the professional world. I will miss GSU more than words can explain, and I will always bleed blue, white, and gold.
