First Day on Campus!

Whoa. I can’t believe I’ve already been at Columbia for a month. My first month of graduate school. That’s right, ladies and gents, I’ve officially begun this crazy ride known as graduate education.

Now, the biggest question I’ve gotten in the last 30 days is, “How’s it going?”

Well, I’ll tell you how it’s going…

Amazingly.

This first month has been nothing short of a whirlwind, but I’ve genuinely enjoyed every second. Now, to be frank, not every moment has been easy and I’ve already had my fair share of stressful moments, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The Journalism, MA program is a little different from most in that we have a three-and-a-half week “boot camp” prior to the start of classes, where we take two courses, Foundations of Journalism and Journalism Culture: Trends and Traditions. These two classes are designed to immediately immerse us into the world of journalism by having us write and report on news events going on in Chicago.

Seeing Chicago’s Streets

Starting off like this, you might think, “wait, what?”

Diving headfirst into reporting was and is pretty scary. But, like all new things, we’ve all slowly adjusted and have already seen massive improvements. Our three professors, Suzanne McBride, Curtis Lawrence and Norma Green, have all done a fabulous job in giving us the confidence to go out and write our first stories.

Out of all the assignments we were given during boot camp, one stood out in particular: shadowing a journalist.

For some of us, myself included, the idea of reaching out to a journalist seemed almost impossible.

Borderline terrifying.

Three days into boot camp and now I have to get ahold of a busy professional journalist and ask if I can shadow them for a day? Talk about stressful.

After some thought (and some much needed deep breaths), I knew who I wanted to shadow: Stefan Holt, anchor of the NBC5 Morning News.

For those of you who don’t know, Stefan Holt is the son of Lester Holt, the current anchor of NBC Nightly News. In other words, my dream job.

I’ve always admired how hard Stefan has worked to make a name for himself and not rest on his laurels or his father’s name. If there was any person who would understand my drive and determination, it was him.

Knowing that I finally had the opportunity to speak with him, armed with my Columbia pedigree, I jumped at the chance.

It wasn’t until then that I realized how powerful being a member of the Columbia community really is. The level of respect and compassion that the journalism community gives you once they know you’re a Columbia student is something I’ve never seen before. They’re ready and willing to help out in any way possible because they know that we are all destined for big things.

Stefan Holt and I at NBC5 Chicago

The experience at NBC5 Chicago was, in a word, incredible.

Getting to see the newsroom first hand and sitting in during a live broadcast was amazing.

The best thing, however, was the time I got to spend with Stefan one-on-one. He spent close to two hours getting to know me and imparting as much wisdom as he possibly could.

He could have simply taken me on a tour and done the bare bones to fulfill what I needed, but he didn’t. He genuinely cared enough to make sure that my experience was memorable and worthwhile. That, to me, was worth more than any grade I could ever get.

The picture we took together is something that I’ll always treasure. Years from now, I know I’ll look back on that moment and remember how special it was. It was the moment someone I admired saw something in me and wanted to capture it.

Hopefully, I can prove it.