Requirements (Texas Christian University’s Bob Schieffer College of Communication’s Strategic Communication Graduate Program):
Statement of no more than 250 words describing academic and/or professional objectives.
Original Submission:
Huddled next to my high school journalism teacher and classmate in a storage closet, we cracked opened the first box and carefully pulled out the shrink-wrapped book. It was my freshman year, and the school’s first-ever yearbooks had arrived. After months of learning how to write, design, and build a program from scratch, I loved seeing people’s faces light up with joy flipping through pages. It was my first exposure to journalism, and I knew I was hooked.
I’d always been a fan of drawing, and middle school creative writing class made me a fan of writing. As an avid reader, when I found a way to be an author and artist simultaneously telling other’s stories, I knew I was staying in the communication field. Now, as a senior mass communication major at Texas Wesleyan, I’ve kept up that commitment and stayed in student media for eight years, four in yearbook and four in newspaper, and served five years as an editor-in-chief between the two.
As my 2020 graduation approaches, I’ve decided that I want to stay involved in student media mentoring future student journalists as I’ve down with my peers throughout my time as a college news editor. My goals are to work three years as a professional, and then become a communication teacher working with student media.
I want to join Bob Schieffer’s College of Communication’s Strategic Communication Graduate Program to hone my own skills and make connections in order to pass them on to my future students.
Brief Notes:
There’s only one draft on here because I forgot to turn it in, but this isn’t the only draft in existence. This piece was particularly hard for me because I have a lot of experience in this field, but I was limited to 250 words. I’m a wordy person, so several drafts over the 250-word count exist on my desktop and loaded onto my Grammarly account.
Hannah Onder 