-: I majored in journalism at Ball State University,
and one of the things that I did in my undergrad was,
from the time that I started,
one of my first days on campus
to my last day on campus,
was
I wrote
for the Ball State Daily News.
And I wrote several stories,
and that was something that helped me
to learn under deadlines,
it helped me to learn how to write better,
learn how to write more efficiently,
learn how to write creatively,
learn how to write concisely.
I wrote as a news reporter.
I wrote as a feature reporter.
And while we do get the learning in class,
it's just nice to see your writing in the paper.
It's a different feeling, it's a different happiness
seeing your writing in the paper versus seeing it
uploaded to Blackboard or uploaded to Canvas.
What I do right now is more focused
on civil engineering technical writing.
However, this was a starting place for me,
and it was a place for me to get the name
Technical Writer under my belt.
And it was an opportunity for me to get more experience.
So, what I would encourage people to do
is to get as much writing in as they possibly can,
in any way, shape, or form, or fashion,
whether that's through press releases,
whether that's at a newspaper.
If you can get as much writing in as possible,
people really like to see that.
They like to see that you're paying attention
to what you're doing, because when you're writing
it doesn't matter, you can mess up.
You can say the word
an,
and you meant to say a,
and that can really mess up
the whole entire structure of the sentence.
And people are confused,
and they don't know what you're saying.
And you want people to understand
what you're saying when you're writing.
I would say do as many writing-based activities as you can,
but another thing that I did was
I was a communications and writing intern
with the City of Indianapolis at the clerk's office,
where I had the opportunity to write things
like press releases, to write training manuals,
and things of that nature.
And I write training manuals now.
And if ever I have to write a press release,
I can always go back to that experience as an internship,
as a student here.
So, definitely intern.