I'm your instructor, Omar Sofradzija (that last name is pronounced so-FRAD-zee-uh; feel free to stick with Omar). Looking at the roster, it looks like I've had a few of you in JRN 200 or 300 before; I'm happy to have you back. If we're just meeting each other, I'm equally glad to have you along.
JRN 400 is considered the capstone class in the journalism sequence, which means you should have completed most -- if not all -- of your journalism electives and prerequisites before starting here. (If you haven't taken JRN 200 or 300 yet, and/or if you're not at least entering your junior year this fall, then you really should't be here, and you should drop this class.)
In this class, we will be reviewing your skills in a variety of necessary professional journalistic areas, and pushing you to do the most deeply-reported journalism in your time here.
How we do work in this class will be varied. To follow the direction of this class, stay updated on happenings and access helpful content, we will primarily be using this class blog. It is your responsibility to check it every weekday for the latest assignments, direction and offerings. This blog formats for mobile, so you should be able to access it wherever you are, whenever you need to.
We will rarely be using D2L for some assignments. The blog will tell you when there is a D2L assignment to do, so use the blog first, and go to D2L when the blog tells you to.
There will also be a class Facebook page which we'll use to communicate with each other. Details are pending; I'll let you know on the blog when it's ready to go.
Plus, your stories will be filed to WordPress in the exact same manner as you did in JRN 300. For a refresher on how to do that, you can click on the student user guide here. To log in, click here and use your JRN 300 login info.
In helping me help you, there is a survey for you to fill out that will tell me a lot about you. For this, please cut and paste the survey post from the blog to a Word doc, fill it out, and email it to omars@msu.edu. Your deadline will be no later than 9 a.m. Thursday, May 17. There are other deadlines this week; please read the following blog posts to find out what is due, and when.
Questions? Feel free to email me at omars@msu.edu. If you need a response right away feel free to text me at 702-271-7983, and please include your name in the text. If it is a flat-out need-to-know-now emergency, you may call me at that same number.
One last heads-up: if you haven't taken a summer class yet, it's important to know summer school in college is very different than in high school, where for the latter it's usually remedial in nature and slower-paced than regular school year classes.
In college, classes are the same content as during the fall and spring, done at least at the same pace -- or an even-faster pace -- than a regular semester! While this class is done at a similar pace, 7-week classes are done at twice the usual speed, with the same content. So please don't expect an easy pace, here or elsewhere. Expect to do two weeks worth of regular school year work volume in any one week.
And if you're taking a bunch of 7-week classes or an internship or job in addition to this class, please make sure you pace yourself and don't fall behind. I want to help you succeed, and to do that I need to see you at your best, on deadline, every time.
Again, welcome! I'm looking forward to seeing what we do this summer.
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