Broadcasting Application

I will be applying for my broadcast major soon, and in order to be considered you must write an essay explaining why they should let you in. I figured I would post it, just to be boring... :)

While other seniors in high school were desperately trying to decide what college they wanted to go to out of five or six, I was only waiting for one acceptance letter. By my junior year of high school I already knew that I would attend Winthrop and major in broadcast communication. My choice of Winthrop as opposed to every other school in the state was made strictly on the reputation of Winthrop’s communication department.

On my first visit to Winthrop’s campus I had a chance encounter with Associate Professor of mass communication, Haney Howell. This conversation eventually led to the abandonment of my tour group and the conclusion of Kathleen Brown’s one and only college application.

The same experience and expertise that inspired me on my first introduction to Dr. Howell is evident in all of my communication teachers. Whether the class is introduction to mass communication or speech class my teachers are always pushing the class to take opportunities and become active in every organization and class we can. The push that I feel from my teachers and class work can only be matched by my drive to succeed.

News has always interested me, and there is not a day that goes by that I do not sit and read over online news on the BBC website or the New York Times. Before taking the media writing class I simply read these articles for fun, but upon taking the class taught by Associate Professor of mass communication, Lawrence Timbs I was taught how reading and making commentaries on blogs can greatly improve a students writing.

Not only have I found this technique helpful, but I also find that now, whether I write a summary of the story or not, I am always recreating a response to the article in my head. The style and writing techniques I am still learning in media writing are already making a mark on my writing skills within my communication classes and in other classes.

Learning to write is a keystone in the media world, but

learning to be flexible and listen is probably almost as important as a person’s writing skill

. What better place to learn flexibility than in the disk jokey booth of the Winthrop Radio station? With no experience and no qualifications I was allowed to play music and talk about whatever I wanted to a pretty large potential audience. After floundering around with the telephone line and many buttons on the radio soundboards for a couple weeks I finally found my groove.

Although I have only been enrolled in two mass communication classes I know that I have the ability to take advice and benefit myself as well as others through my experiences at Winthrop.

The DJ booth of a college radio station is somewhere that I never thought to see myself, but with the responsibilities and opportunities that a communication major offers at Winthrop

I hope to find myself in many other places I never dreamed I would be.