through these blogger's eyes

First and foremost, I would like to say wow. This whole experience has been quite an adventure for me. Working with a group of girls and having to be the only guy there was quite a challenge for me, but I knew I was up for it. Blogging in itself is quite an intriguing genre of media. I had heard of it previously, but was not an active blogger myself, so to be afforded this opportunity to become a blogger was quite exciting…at first. This was before we got the dynamic duo of lecturers who blew my expectations for our tasks right out the window. The fact that I had to do group work was alright with me, it was just the fact that they expected so much out of us in such little time. I mean we are all not on the same computer literacy levels; as a result various alterations have had to be made to things such as submissions because of it. Most of the work we had done since the beginning of this year has been purely just written and mostly theoretical in nature; this was the first practical side albeit at the end of the course. Our topic for the blogs seemed easy enough when we first got it, “Surviving first year”, how wrong I was. Story ideas around this were actually broader then one could have imagined. This is because the first things that pop in mind are those faced by the majority of first year varsity students. Matters of the heart, mind as well as those of the liver are such. This was also the trick in terms of finding a specific blog audience because of the variety of first years not just in Rhodes, but all over the world. One then has to remember that not all first years are the same, especially here on campus; as a result the minorities are often overlooked. Things such as these had to be put into serious consideration when compiling whatever sort of presentation for the assignment that week. One of my personal highlights was having to write a profile on another person. First thing that appealed to me was that I had a second chance to do something earlier this year. It also meant that I could try out some other things I neglected to do previously. This was quite a worthwhile exercise because we weren’t confined to a first year journalism student like last time.
With all that having been said, I feel as though as a journalist, blogging opens a new platform for one to get their work seen. This is another aspect I liked about this term. My only gripe with everything has been some of the lectures and how they have been brought across to us. Some advice for future first years: ask the lecturers to have blog lectures in the Jac Labs or something on some days. I mean what is the point sometimes of having a technical lecture when you aren’t being afforded the opportunity to do it in lecture time. Other than all of that I would say that my writing has improved ever so slightly, meaning that I could still do better. I am still proud of myself and what I have done to this point. As I had mentioned before, my group was a bit on the unfavourable side for me. GMAP is the name we gave ourselves. The reasoning behind that was the first letter of each of our names. Working with the girls was quite interesting because I figured from onset that they would vote against me with most issues. For that reason I just made sure I make no wrong move to upset any one of them, but as I later found out they were all so relaxed with me, and very sweet to be around. They have also through their encouragement and criticisms contributed to my growth both as a team-member and as a writer. The other thing that I found helpful to me was some of the more theoretical lectures, because we found new ways to write, not just confined to the print media. Some of the material we covered, such as the Michael Jordan clips were quite nice. My only advice for future first years would be: request to have technical lectures (i.e. the more details blogging stuff) at the Jac Labs or something. That’s because sometimes one may hear how something is done in a lecture and when they get in front of a computer screen they blank out. Other than that and time constraints, this course has been quite fun and enjoyable.