Whatever I am, that’s what I am…

I find myself choosing classes for the beginning of my final year at Seton Hill University (SHU.) Even though I still three semesters to go, I wrote a lot of this reflection back in December.

By Daniella Choynowski

Center Spread Editor

I find myself choosing classes for the beginning of my final year at Seton Hill University (SHU.) Even though I still have three semesters to go, I wrote a lot of this reflection back in December.

Junior year, while bringing with it an incredible workload, has been by far the most fun. It used to be that whenever I seemed to say the “f” word in reference to one of my classes, something horribly UNFUN would be assigned. This is also one of the few years wherein I actually had to take tests and quizzes instead of doing projects and papers. I became accustomed to a different type of learning, and I had to re-teach myself how to study. So many trees died so that I could have notecards. I’ve killed about half of a rainforest worth of trees in the past week. I’ll admit: I got really sick of those little quizzes.

This is the first semester in which I’ve been able to apply the concepts I’ve learned in other journalism classes to each other. I squeezed the Journalism major into half the time people usually take to create it, I had to take classes out of sequence. I often found myself one of the few who had neither heard of nor understood whatever the professor was teaching. But it all makes sense now.

I must admit, I didn’t understand the value of much of it. I didn’t see any personal direct real-world applications for learning how to program an IF game or Flash, but I suppose that learning a complex program is sort of a warm-up for the real world. I understand that many of the graduates from this program go into computer and technology fields. Since I’m not going to be working in New Media after graduation, I’ve had a hard time seeing the relevance of much of the subject material, but I have to remember that I’m an exception to the rule and remind myself what kind of students the New Media Journalism program is geared towards.

Am I a computer programmer? A Blogger? A Flash designer? A sound editor? No, but I know how to do all of these things, and do them well. If life was spent learning only things, we were interested in, no one would graduate college.

Above all, I am a writer, a researcher, an actress, and a singer, and sometimes a guitarist. I’m a comedienne. I’m a lover of everything that is Oscar Wilde, J.K Rowling, Victor Hugo, Meg Cabot, and John Green.  I’m a philosopher. I’ll probably be an expatriate someday. That is who I am.

I’m also neurotic and I’m anal-retentive. I make things harder for myself than they have to be and I push myself too hard. I care way too much about my grades and what they say about me because I often measure intelligence by GPA. I sometimes care about what people think of me. I set my goals high, but reach them eventually (driving myself up the wall in the process).

That is who I am.

I have a year left at SHU. I don’t have many classes within the journalism major. From here on out, I’m finishing up this degree, taking the rest of my core theatre classes, and filling in the spaces with the two General Education classes that I need. I only have one more class that I have to blog in Media Lab. I’ve written some 214 blog entries in the past year and a half, of my school career.

This is the end my friends, and I offer you the following words of wisdom based on my observations these past three years (two of which were spent as a journalism major):

1) Whatever you are learning is NOT useless, regardless of whether you will use it in your future. Everything in this world has value.

2) Clear blocks of hours to do work. Saturdays are golden.

3) Not doing your work and half-heartedly doing assignments is not going to spite the teacher. Learn the material. Doing well will be your “so there.”

4) You do not know more than the teacher. Pay attention and don’t be apathetic. Apathy gets you nowhere.

5) You do not have to love everything, but love at least part of what you do. I hate new media, but have to use it. Society has to adapt to technology. I love writing. That is why I am a new media journalism major.

6) Stop and smell the roses, the bushes, the trees, and even the grass and leaves. Don’t let life pass you by.