College of Fine Arts & Communication
Training the next generation of journalists
Using real-world events gives aspiring journalists experiences like no other
Journalism takes skill, practice and, most of all, experience. At Towson University in the College of Fine Arts and Communication, Pallavi Guha, Ph.D., gives student journalists real-world experience through her news reporting class.
The course is an elective for the journalism track of a mass communication major. Student journalists taking this class experience a professional environment along with the incentive of potentially having their work published on .
Guha and other campus partners held an election update night for her students on Nov. 5. During the event, students visited different watch parties across the Towson area to report on the reactions of attendees. The reports were published on the Baltimore Watchdog.
"Tonight, my students have the real-world opportunity of reporting on an election. Their stories must be at the level we’ve been working on all semester because there is no room for error tonight,” Guha said then.
She uses two grants to support educational opportunities for students: The and the .
As part of the grants, students received reimbursed travel expenses and guidance from three peer leaders, who provide editorial assistance to other students.
“I really enjoyed her class when I took it last year,” says Donte Davis, one of Guha’s three peer leaders this semester. “She asked me if I’d be interested in this position, and it’s been a really great experience so far.”
Guha offers students freedom and flexibility to adapt to changing situations, leaving them feeling prepared and confident to take on the journalism field once they graduate.
Kobe Cuprill ’24, a current student says, “One time I had to cover an event, and the event had been cancelled, but I didn’t know until I got to the address and saw all the lights cut off and the door locked. So instead, I found a new event by asking some event coordinators and still got information for the story me and my partner were writing.”
Through experiential learning opportunities like the ones Guha provides, students get a jumpstart on building their journalistic portfolios.
"This is a unique experience for my students because it gives them a chance to be exposed to live reporting on an election, which not a lot of journalists do during their first couple of years,” explained Guha. “Once this is over, they’ll have election articles in their portfolios, some published on national or local news like the Baltimore Fishbowl and the National Community News Wire and experience as staff writers for the Baltimore Watchdog for when they graduate and start looking for jobs.”
Cuprill’s classmates Braxton Hemmeian, Alexandra Momot and Omolemo Kale had articles published on the Baltimore Watchdog that night. Cuprill and Hemmeian wrote a story about stress on younger generation caused by the election and how different students at Towson University were handling the stress. Momot and Kale had published a story about the mixed feelings at Loyola University Maryland as the election progressed.
“This class gives us a lot of great exposure to a lot of different things we’ll need in the future,” says Alexandra Momot ’24. “I think we all feel very prepared for after we graduate, thanks to the experience Professor Guha has given us.”
This class gives us a lot of great exposure to a lot of different things we’ll need in the future. I think we all feel very prepared for after we graduate, thanks to the experience Professor Guha has given us.
Alexandra Momot