FAU Journalism Class is Helpful in Preparing Students for Life After College!

FAU's Communication department offers a class titled Coverage of Public Affairs. This class is a requirement for Multimedia Journalism majors, but for everyone else it is an inside view into the life of a journalist. In this class, which is taught by Professor Glenn Singer, the students are assigned ‘beats’ or topics to write on and throughout the semester each student uncovers topics to report on within their beat.

An example would be if I had the beat of Arts within FAU, I would cover performances within the art departments, profile pieces on distinguished professors, upcoming projects, interesting classes that do not follow your typical academic scale etc…The student then researches their beat constantly, choosing stories and keeps up with their reporting, all while consulting with the professor every step of the way to keep the student on the right track. Just recently part 2 of this class was added to FAU. This class 'part 2 class' works with the part 1 students and assists them as if they were editors.

Once finished the articles/stories are entered onto the OWL OBSERVER. This is an online website where anyone can go and view what the Coverage of Public Affairs students have written.

Throughout this course interviewing skills and techniques are what the professor continually instructs the students on; when to interview, how to start an interview. This class is a helpful tool for any student in any major, due to the fact that the class touches on skills that everyone can and will use on their career path. Professor Singer says that, “ The interviewing process for an article helps prepare students for interviewing for jobs and the face to face encounter that we deal with everyday in the workplace."


GO OWLS!