I am happy to say I survived what was one of the more stressful semesters in my life.
Four classes and a full time job. To be honest the Job (NewAssignment.Net) has probably been a greater learning experience — but let’s start at the beginning.
Lessons learned from school
- I made my professional website which I will upload to djcohn.com soon. Also learned a little Flash
- Will have a story published in CJR in January
- Furthered my intimate knowledge of the workings of Web 2.0 and the changing media landscape
- Had several stories published in small newspapers around the country
- The big critical issues scandal (Don’t worry wasn’t me — but I did hate the prof. Sam Freedman who unknowingly treated me like a child through his lectures).
The big news for me was my first editorial position. More importantly,
I am working with a small team of very capable and intelligent
individuals on NewAssignment.Net — figuring out how we can bring open
source practices to journalism. While this work has kept me from
freelancing, it has been very rewarding, eye opening and is giving me a
chance to break out of the intern cycle — where I never intend to
return.
- I blog regularly now, just not at Digidave
- Learning the in’s and out’s of editing
- Figuring out how to build traffic for a blog — Happy to say NewAssignment is on a steady upward track
- A deeper appreciation and understanding of the phrase "my readers know more than I do"
- Drupal — robust open source software that can build community websites
- Insight into exactly what it takes to create something out of nothing — from idea to implementation
- The importance of effective communication with coworkers — I’m
lucky that the NewAssignment team is both clear, concise and motivated
Of course — the lessons learned are far greater than can be summarized in a bullet point list. Let me tell you why
- Bullet points aren’t complete sentences
- Everything in life is nuanced and isn’t always organized in chronological patterns
- I just finished the semester and I’m catching up on sleep while
typing this — so it’s just a list of the first things that come to my head - I will continue to learn both in school and at NewAssignment
Onward!!!!