Parent Newsletter
Letter from the Department Chair
Letter from the Department ChairWelcome Parents:
This has been a highly successful quarter for Cal Poly’s journalism department. We admitted 80 new students, hosted a networking event with members of our Advisory Board and welcomed back alumni during Homecoming Weekend. The Cal Poly journalism community is stronger than ever, and we work to strengthen the connections between students and graduates working in the professional world. Today, as the news media are under scrutiny from all sides, I believe our students are prepared to uphold the ideals we teach: a strong commitment to accurate and thorough journalism along with facility with the latest technologies that allow them to reach audiences on all platforms. Following you’ll find a summary of important events hosted by the Journalism Department this quarter, along with spotlights on some of our talented students and the popular multimedia courses we offer.
This newsletter is the brainchild of a team of students working in our student-run public relations agency. Working in Professor Yan Shan’s class, Monique Geisen, Andi Di Matteo and Nikki Petkopoulos came up with the idea for a newsletter for parents, then gathered and wrote all of the stories you see here. Just one great example of Cal Poly’s Learn by Doing in action!
Sincerely,
Mary Glick
Chair of the Journalism Department
Quarter in Review
The Journalism Department welcomed 80 new students in fall 2017: 57 freshmen and 23 transfer students. This is one of our biggest incoming classes, as we’ve continued to grow our enrollment over the years.
Read more about what happened in the Journalism Department this quarter
Students Make Big Strides with Highly Successful Internships
Cara Benson and Connor McCarthy both held prestigious internships over the summer. Benson worked at Pop Media Group and Warner Bros., and McCarthy worked at ABC News in Washington D.C.
Class Feature: JOUR 285
Introduction to Multimedia Journalism (JOUR 285) serves as the gateway to skills students need in digital journalism today. Most students take the course during their freshman year as it is a prerequisite for many upper-division journalism classes.
Class Feature: JOUR 390
Visual Communication for the Mass Media (JOUR 390) is a class typically taken by sophomores and juniors. It focuses on providing students with multimedia skills in the critical Adobe Creative Suite programs.
Read more about the Adobe Suite techniques taught in JOUR 390
Class Feature: JOUR 410
Advanced Digital Journalism (JOUR 410) is designed to arm journalism students with cutting-edge skills in web-based communication. Students learn coding skills including languages like HTML, Javascript and CSS to create their own websites.
Featured News Coverage
Follow how students reported on breaking news at the scene of a fire, read an in-depth human interest story involving multimedia journalism and extensive interviewing, and see how students collaborated to create an engaging video feature.