Super Semester — Just the Beginning
It’s been two weeks since the new semester, and with that the Super Semester, started. I’ve heard from a lot of people that they still get nightmares of the workload that’s required during the Super Semester. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about: The Super Semester is a combination of four classes at Lindenwood University’s school of Communication that’s supposed to provide students with a solid understanding on how a television newscast is put together while providing hand-on experiences to the students attending the Super Semester.
Super Semester — The Key to successful Journalism
On a personal note, I honestly believe that I’m the first student in the history of Lindenwood who’s doing the Super Semester for fun. Those four classes (Broadcast Newswriting, Television News Reporting, Television News Production, and Applied Television News) are required to every single Journalism student. However, since I’m going for a degree in Mass Communication I’m not required to do the Super Semester. The main reason I’m attending the Super Semester is that I want to pursue a career in broadcast journalism.
At the beginning of the Super Semester the group of six undergraduate and two graduate students gets divided into two groups of four people. One group is responsible for the content, which means this group is supposed to go out and create news reports for the LUTV newscast that airs twice a week on LUTV. The other group, which is called the “in-house group” is responsible for writing the news and presenting them live on the air. After four weeks both groups switch and do what the other group did for the first four weeks of the semester.
I’m more than excited that I was chosen to be on the in-house group for the first four weeks. I have to admit that I was really nervous when I found out that I was chosen to anchor the first live newscast of 2016 but I felt really honored that my professor believed I’d be able to do this.
The First Step is Always the Hardest
Our first newscast didn’t go as well as we hoped to but we got invaluable experiences and we did way better on our second newscast two days later. For the next couple of weeks I’ll continue to be on the in-house team, which means that I’ll be either anchoring, producing, or announcing weather and sports. The highlights of our newscasts are always available on LUTV’s Youtube channel. You can watch the Super Semester students live every Tuesday and Thursday on LUTV.
I’m more than excited for what the future has in store for me and my fellow Super Semester friends.
P.S: It’s exciting to see how fast the group of Super Semester students became a close group in which everybody is helping each other out. Besides the fantastic hands-on experiences, it’s those relationships what the Super Semester is really about.
