The final stop on the fall version of the Filak Furlough Tour took place at Colorado State University, where we decided to kind of go with a broader Q and A approach.

Like every pit class I’ve ever taught or attended, I had a couple in the front row, a couple in the middle of the auditorium and a back row that would probably gone further back if they could have.

It’s nice to know that some things in life are eternal…

COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY — FORT COLLINS, CO

THE TOPIC: Pretty much anything they wanted to talk about. The one key area students hit on a couple times was the issue of how to get ready for life beyond school, either through internships or through finding something that matters to you.

THE BASICS: In terms of finding an internship, it’s not what you know. It’s whom you know. My best advice is to get to know the people teaching your professionally oriented media classes, as they are the ones with connections in the field.

The reasons they have these connections can vary based on if they’re still working the field or if they’ve been retired to academia, but the one thing that is a universal is their connections. I explained to the students that in most cases, there was someone five or six years ago who was sitting in the same seat you are and was desperate to get an internship. Now, those people are the ones looking for interns, and they’re probably going to reach out to that professor and ask, “You got anyone good?”

I don’t know how many times I’ve played matchmaker over the. years, but what I do know is that I have a lot of former students who have hired a lot of interns from my classes. I also know a lot of former students who work with other former students, as birds of a feather tend to flock together. Also, the students who tended to like the way I taught them and the skills I helped them hone will likely want similarly taught and honed students.

That’s not to say that being an alumni-based nepo-baby is all it takes. You still need to be skilled in the field in which you want to work, have work product to show potential hiring folks and basically be a worthwhile human being. However, there seems to be an abundance of folks who are all relatively similar in the minds of hiring professionals  in regard to each of these areas. Therefore, to separate yourself, that’s where the connections come in because these people can vouch for you in a way that has real meaning to potential hiring folks.

 

BEST QUESTION OF THE DAY (PART I): In your experience, how much of a problem is it if a student doesn’t really have a full sense of where they want to go or what they want to do with their degree upon graduation?

BEST ANSWER I HAD AT THE TIME (PART I): The truth of the matter is that nobody has it all figured out in college. The people who say they have always known they want to do X and are working on a degree to put them on a path to achieving X are most likely going to change majors four times, change colleges at least twice and end up wandering the earth like Caine in “Kung Fu” trying to find something or other.

What tends to put you on the best path is when you go into something with a desire to learn something of value. In media classes in particular, I like to talk about putting tools into your toolbox. Each skill you pick up will make you more useful down the road, wherever that road takes you.

I recommend trying out things through student media and student orgs to see what appeals to you and what looked better on paper than it did in real life. Internships also give you a peek at what you might like and what you might not.

Either way, look for things that interest you and there’s a strong probability that your media skills will somehow apply and get you where you want to go, even if you don’t know where that is yet.

 

BEST QUESTION OF THE DAY (PART II): What are the most important things you can have or skills you can develop if you want to be a success in this field?

BEST ANSWER I HAD AT THE TIME (PART II): As much as I know people want to hear things like “Learn THIS social media tool” or “Pivot to THIS platform,” the best answer I have is completely different. I have found these were the things that have made a difference for me and a lot of other people I know who have been successful in this realm:

ENTHUSIASM: Of all the things ever said or written about me, my favorite is in a going-away card that’s about 25 years old. When I left the State Journal, the folks there were nice enough to give me a going-away party, a cake and a card. In that card, were a lot of “Good Luck” messages, but my editor, Teryl Franklin, wrote this: The one thing I’ll always remember about you is that whenever the scanner went off, you always asked, “Can I go?”

Teryl was a lifesaver for me, quite literally, as she came to be my editor at one of the worst points of my career. I was a mess after suffering a terrible editor and then dealing with editor roulette. The former crushed my self-confidence while the latter helped me learn how different people worked, even as I was essentially a reporting orphan. Teryl was the person who helped put me back together, trusted me and got me back on the horse. Praise from her was like manna from heaven.

We talked about that note before I left and she basically said that it was my willingness chase any story, go anywhere and do anything that let her know I was worthwhile as a journalist. As long as I kept up that level of enthusiasm and work ethic, I’d be totally fine, she said.

Decades later, I’m still dedicated to that principle. I often tell people that I was never the smartest, or the fastest or the best at anything, but I made up for that with the desire to just do whatever I could to make something work, regardless of the odds or the enemy.

LIFE-LONG LEARNING: A great bit of advice I picked up over the years was to find out how to do something at my job that no one else knew how to do, thus making myself indispensable. In some of my earlier jobs, it was figuring out how to keep the garbage bags properly tethered to the rim of the cans. In later years, it was knowing how to fix the copy machine or how to run a particular piece of software.

At the core of this was the concept of life-long learning: Always be willing and able to pick up a new set of skills, figure out something else you want to learn and be ready to take on new challenges instead of resting on your laurels.

Over the years, I’ve picked up various skills like furniture restoration, hand caning, pinball machine repair, auto repair and more. When a kid at one of the Furlough Tour stops asked me what I would like to do next, I think he assumed I’d say, “Write another textbook” or “Create Specialty Course X.” The truth surprised him: “I’d love to go back to the Tech out here and learn how to do welding.” Why? I’ve always wanted to do body work on my car and I need that skill to do it.

If you never outgrow a desire to learn, you’ll always have a place somewhere in your career field. And if you get bored, you’ll have a bunch of other skills to fall back on.

PRACTICE: As we’ve discussed on the blog before, there is an inherent difference between a talent and a skill. Talents are given from birth and allow people to excel by the mere dint of who they are. Skills are learned actions that can be developed through repetition and desire for improvement. In short, skills require practice.

A common conversation I have with students in my writing class takes place right about the time we start working on leads. I tell them they will need to write one sentence, but it will take about three class periods. They look at me like I’m daft, until they try it, we edit it, we review it, they try it again and they eventually turn something in.

The frustration is palpable, but I try to put the situation in perspective. I’ll often ask if they played a sport or an instrument. When the kid tells me, “Yeah, basketball” or “I still play the piano” I’ll ask if they were sinking threes the first time they picked up the ball or playing Beethoven right away. They, of course, laugh and tell me how long it took them to get good at that sport or instrument.

My point then becomes clear: Skills take practice to develop, and writing is no different. Why would you expect to be perfect on the first pass on this assignment?

Like most things, the more you practice journalism, the better you get at it. Then, you can challenge yourself to try bigger things or more complex maneuvers. Keep working on it and you’ll be fine. In the mean time, give yourself a break.

NEXT STOP: Winter Break