Jen's George Mason Trip!

This by far has been the best day at WJMC. Not only did we get to have a press confrence with Obama’s deputy press secretary but the dancing at the end of the day was tottaly worth all of the time we spent getting up early and staying up late to write these blogs. I wished we could have done something like this every night, or at least twice. Any way the panel for today was very interesting and I liked that they were all a little closer in age to all of us and had experienced all that we are soon going to be experiencing. They also seemed to understand the change in journalism a little better and were able to give us advice on internships and opportunities that we shouldn’t pass up. I enjoyed the evening speakers as well. I would like to work for national geographic someday and it was an amazing opportunity to see their building and to listen to and see some of the work they do. I also enjoyed listening to the man who used to write for SNL as he gave us a look at how news could be told in humor and he was very entertaining. This was all good but I must say my favorite part of the day was the dancing! It was so much fun! DJ Smokey was great and I thnik that everyone had a really great time dancing to songs from the Cha Cha Slide to Sean Kingston. It was the perfect end to this week!

My name is Jen Ferguson and I would really like to write for national geographic some day. I want to travel and see the world so I would probably try to work in the travel section so that I can still write and take pictures but I’ll be able to travel. I plan on majoring in english and minoring in journalism. I’m so excited to be here!

I’m so tired I can’t even begin to think. I can’t even remember the last time I woke up earlier than eight let alone five thirty!!!!! It’s the first real day of the WJMC and it has been packed with so much stuff for us to do and activities I honestly can hardly remember what we did today. Wes Pippert spoke to us this morning about journalism and what he feels about its shift from print to the Internet. I’m afraid I dosed off and on through this and missed a lot of what he was saying but I’m sure it was good. After that we went with our group and faculty advisor to do a stimulation and to also talk about what the speaker was talking about. After lunch we began the fun part of the day by being loaded onto buses and brought to the Newseum (i love it’s name) where we saw some really neat displays on the many events and remarkable moments in the history of journalism. There were pieces of the Berlin wall which was my favorite part as well as several other displays such as The First Amendment, the Lincoln case, 9/11, and the Pulitzer Prize Photography display (another favorite). We got to see two presentations which were interesting although I really wish we could have spent more time walking around the museum. After that we returned to the campus where we had another lesson with our faculty member and then attended a panel which was very interesting and informative about what it take to not only be successful in journalism but in any other career you might choose to be in. It was a very interesting day and I feel that it has inspired me to become an investigative reporter so that I can travel and cover the news of the world for those who cannot travel or are unaware of situations overseas.

My feet are bleeding. No I’m not joking thanks to my new heels and the long walk around the Smithsonian’s my feet actually started bleeding. Other than that excruciating pain I was really happy with the exhibits. The air and space museum was pretty cool even though I’m not really into planes and stuff like that. However the natural history and some of the American history were pretty cool too! I liked seeing all of the things from Hollywood like Dorthy’s slippers and Kermit the frog! I thought seeing all the gems were cool too as were all the animal exhibits. Another fun part of the day was getting to meet freelance journalist during the aspects of journalism session. She was so interesting and I felt she had a good understanding of her job and the stories she writes. Because of this session I think I would like to look more in-depth at the websites she gave us for internships as well as looking into different kinds of writing in journalism preferably international stories. The perfect end to our day was a bus tour around all of the monuments which I was so excited for. Unfortunately I don’t think we were really able to see as many of  the memorials as I would have liked to and I was a little upset when we weren’t able to get off the buses at some of the memorials.

Yay my first day at George Mason has been great! I love that there are trees and hills. definetly different from florida. I miss the beach but I’m so excited to see the newseum tomorrow!

Yay my first day at George Mason has been great! I love that there are trees and hills. definetly different from florida. I miss the beach but I’m so excited to see the newseum tomorrow!
jfergus2@gmu.edu
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July 15, 2009

Gunshots, statues, and clementines another busy day at the Washington Journalism and Media conference. It all started off at five thirty, actually five fourty-five, in my small but “cozy” dorm room. I had awaken to the sound of a shower and was groggily rubbing my eyes until suddenly I felt myself sliding off my plastic wrapped bed. I slowly got ready for the day, thinking of all the things we were going to do. My feet were already beginning to hurt. After a quick breakfast we set off for the day, stepping on to the bus with a purpose, pulling our cameras out of our bags, and sipping the last dregs of our coffee, ready to get onto the road and then to head to the capital. The bus was silent, mouths hung open, hands remained motionless, the entire bus slept until we finally arrived at the art gallery where we listened to Chuck Todd discussed the most important parts of journalism and the importance of attending as many events as possible when your first starting out in the journalism world. We then listened to Andrew Flagel give a speech about college applications which was suprisingly funny! Lunch and shopping were definetly a better part of the day (although I think the sushi was funny), however the hour break we had was definetly good too! Although I would have liked to see more of the capital it was really cool to actually go inside of it! The statues were pretty cool too! The rest of the evening was fun and my group spent it eating clementines and cookies and discussing what questions we would ask at the press confrence tomorrow.

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