MSCM 275: Information Gathering
This is a required course for everyone within mass communication and media studies. It's designed so that students learn how to gather information from a variety of sources: databases, libraries, surveys, and people and then understand how to use critical thinking to organize and present the information. Throughout the semester I had to write a set of annotations for our different source requirements each week. At the end of the semester each student had written work that ended up being somewhere over 100 pages. To the right is my final paper.
MSCM 321: Photojournalism
This course was focused on understanding how to manipulate shutter speed, aperture and ISO. Each week I was given a different category to shoot: sports, portrait, showing something that would emphasize shutter speed, a focus on lighting, etc. Students had to write a couple of sentences that worked like a caption for each photo. To the right is an example showing depth of field.
MSCM 347: Principles of Public Relations
This course served as an introduction to the principles and practices of public relations. I came to understand the history and development of the profession as well as the four-step process: research, strategic planning, communication and evaluation. I was able to examine communication stragies of different organizations. To the right are examples of of organizations I analyzed, chose appropriate communication goals for and created stratgies for an effective PR plan.
MSCM 370: Public Relations Writing
After deciding on PR as my focus within mass communication, I took this required course. Overall, I took what I learned from Principles of PR and put together a media kit for a specific company that I created a campaign for. To the right are examples from the media kit including a pitch to the nonprofit, a press release and a PSA.
MSCM : History of Mass Communication
In this course students learned about the role and development of mass media throughout history. Focuses included history of newspapers, books, radio, video, film, advertising and public relations. Students were able to distinguish how each of these interacted with social and political aspects of American history. To the right is my final paper for this course. Students found a family artifact that was relevant to a major event in history and wrote about both.
MSCM 111: Journalism Practices
During my first semester at Linfield, I enrolled in a journalism practices course where we were basically freelance writers for the papers. We looked at journalistic writing step by step and were then required to write different types of stories each week that were published in the paper. To the right is an early example of a feature story.