2.3 My Major

I am currently a journalism major at the University of Arizona. Students majoring in journalism have many different paths to follow in this major. I have only just started my journey through this major and I'm still pretty open minded about what specific road I will take. In an entry level journalism course, that all people in the major must take, you learn about what it means to be a journalist. The rules to writing, the ethic codes, all the different types of journalism and so on. Once graduating with a journalism degree depending on what you decided to specialize in you can go on to things like investigative journalism, broadcast journalism, print and media journalism, some may even go on to law school.

I never saw myself getting a degree in journalism until I decided random to go to a lecture a weather forecaster was holding in Santa Barbra. He made his job sound interesting and entertaining, which is what I wanted out of a career. At that time I was on medical leave from U of A and in school at Santa Barbara City College studying marine biology. The next semester I returned to U of A and started my first classes toward a degree in journalism with a minor in atmospheric sciences.

Its hard to recount the most exciting people in journalism at this moment because it is so broad and constantly changing. I do although have all time favorites. My favorite journalist of all time would be Robert Capa, he is a photo journalist who revolutionized war photography in the 20's-early 50's. His photos capture a moment in time and are highly regarded to this day.

Capa, Robert "D-Day: June 6, 1944: Allied Invasion of Normandy [photo by Robert Capa]"via flickr. attribution-noncommercial

Oxford University has one of the leading journals on climate change that is highly regarded in the journalism field. Public debates and arguments are what journalism is all about and it is what keeps it going. My entire field is based on the fact that people are constantly finding new things to discuss and debate.

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Weekly Calendar Sheet

As I filled out my weekly calendar I started to realize how I spend my time and where I have more time than I realized for things like studying and homework. Every night my sleep schedule is pretty consistent, I go to bed between 12 am and 1 am and wake up between 7:30am and 9:30am. I always give myself a 2 hour period in the morning for getting ready, eating breakfast and walking to school with time to prep for class once on campus. I have lots of large gaps between classes and this is a time I can start my homework for the day. I eat all my meals at my sorority house so they are at the same time every day and easy to schedule around. Directly after class is my favorite time to study or do homework because I am still in the mood to work, I try to give myself time after classes because of this. I think my biggest chunk of poorly spent time is early evening. I tend to procrastinate then and loose focus. Hopefully as the school year starts to set in I will get better at managing my time through out the day.

"Paper Calendar Planner Pen Schedule Organizer" 01/21/2015 via Pixabay. Public Domain Dedication

After reading and looking at the schedules of my classmates I realize that we are all very busy college students and I'm not the only person juggling a full calender. The one thing I noticed while reading Oscar Acosta's post was that he likes to do his homework Monday, Wednesday, Friday and on the weekends. I tend to just do my homework during any free time I have on week days. Between classes, during lunch or at night, I really don't mind I just prefer to make sure its done before the weekend so I can have some free time. Sundays are always study and reading days for me. Stephanie Vicenti had a schedule I could relate to, hard working weeks with time on the weekend.

1.8 My Writting Process

1.  I would consider myself a sequential composer. I believe I take a fair amount of time to think and plan before I write, but it also takes a lot of revision before I come up with a final draft. When I am given a writing assignment the first thing I do is start to think it out and write down all the information I'll need to collect my thoughts. Then I start to write, taking the essay piece by piece. I tend to have to go back and change my opening paragraph to fit my essay when I'm done because I change it a lot just while writing. My final stage is a revision where I make a lot of changes along with the inevitable spelling and grammar corrections.
2. I believe that when I write I use all four types of writing, heavy planner, heavy reviser, sequential composer and procrastination. The most sequential composer and the least procrastination. Depending on the type of essay my approach to writing my differ. On a topic of opinion I find that I use mostly the heavy revision and procrastination, but on a more factual writing assignment I will use much more heavy planning and a fair amount of revising and fact checking. 
3. I find that recently my writing has improved tremendously and I think it is due to my increasing shift to being a sequential composer. When I write it helps me to be balanced in all sections to stay focused and on topic. The biggest flaw in my writing is when I procrastinate, it effects my writing very negatively. 
4. I think the way I'm going about writing right now is the most beneficial for me. I would love to eliminate procrastination completely from my life, but that isn't an instant solution to the holes in my writing.  I feel the more I balance myself between planning and revising the better my work will be.  

 After reading my peers writing processes I saw that procrastination seems to be the biggest issue with many writers. Procrastination can do many different things to a writer, it can get you off topic, make your writing jumbled and messy and even make you miss assignments. It seems like the solution across the board for it is to try your hardest to stay on topic and then heavily revise your papers when your done. I wish there was an easier way to get around it but its all in your own personal determination. I read Felicia Maldonado's thoughts on being a heavy reviser and agreed with her that heavy revising is affective, but personally I need both preparation and revising to get through an essay. I also read Michael Dominguez's " My Writing Process" and saw that he struggles with procrastination which seems to be a large scale problem with all kinds of writers, including myself.

"Student Typing Keyboard Text Woman Startup" 02/15/2015 via pixabay

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