Overall, Comm 465 was a wonderful class that I am happy to have taken. The professor Bu Zhong was a wonderful instructor who genuinely cares about the education of his students. The parts of the class that I found most helpful were the in-class critiques of live news broadcasts and of our own peer’s packages. This helped me to see what a good news package looked like versus a bad one. I was able to then learn from my own mistakes and those of my peers.
I also enjoyed the parts of the class where we discussed the other aspects of the job market such as social media, new technology and where the future of journalism is headed. The openness of the instructor to questions and concerns of the students was also a trait of the class that I found very helpful.
Another part of the class that made it memorable for me were the times when the professor spoke about his own experience in the field and those of his colleagues. You could tell that he was a man of experience and knew the tough parts of being a journalist. Hearing advice straight from the source is always helpful.
If I were able to take the class again I would hope there would next time be more hands-on training using the cameras. Every time my partners and I went out to film we had trouble with the camera every single time. They are wonderful pieces of machinery, but they are also very complex. It is sometimes hard to operate them which makes filming that much harder.
Overall, it was a pleasure to take Comm 465 with Dr. Bu Zhong. I would highly recommend this professor to any future student going through the Broadcast Journalism program.