archived

This page archives my work from my senior year at Chapman University. It has not been updated since 2020.

Senior Year; What’s Next? | Success Favors the Bold

For my last Installment of Senior Year; What’s Next? I want to introduce you to Rudy Juarez-Pinedo. Rudy graduated from Chapman University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Broadcast Journalism and Documentary Film in May 2020, just a few months after the pandemic began. At the time, He was working part-time at Spectrum News 1 as a production assistant, but soon he was offered the position full time. Six months later, he was promoted to an Associate Producer. 

Now you might be thinking, wow, this guy got super lucky to find and secure a job, let alone a promotion during a pandemic. While some of his success may be attributed to luck, its majority comes from his character. Rudy is not afraid to be himself, and by that, I mean he is a people person and a natural-born storyteller.

So let’s rewind a little. How exactly did Rudy land his job as an associate producer? Well, it all started his junior year. Like most of us, Rudy spent months applying to internships, doing interviews, and hitting dead ends. Although it was discouraging at first, Rudy knew he wanted to tell stories through a news lens, so he never gave up hope and continued his job search. Finally, he landed an internship with Spectrum News 1 after mailing in his resume and cover letter and getting a callback. If he had one piece of advice for us seniors, it would be to mail our resume. Job recruiters spend more time looking at physical resumes, and that improves your chances of being selected.  

While the internship only lasted a few months, Rudy felt like his time at Spectrum was not over. He loved the environment, his co-workers, and, most importantly, the way they told stories. So he took a chance and put himself out there. During his internship, he had grown close to his News Director, and at the end, he asked if they had a job for him. By May 2020, Rudy became a Production Assistant. He then spent the next seven months giving the station his best, and in January 2021, he was promoted to an Associate Producer. Success favors the bold; sometimes, all you need is an opportunity to prove your worth. For Rudy, this was the exact case. If he had not been bold and been himself, he does not even know where he would be.

So seniors, with only a few more weeks left, I want to remind you once again that in the long run, everything will work out as long as you put in the effort. Keep trying, keep applying, never give up. It may be frustrating; it may be discouraging, but all it takes is one opportunity. You may not land a job right away or necessarily love where you end up at first, but if you persevere, you’ll reap the rewards in the future. Remember that it’s not just you. The world is collectively experiencing mass trauma right now, and in times of trauma, sometimes the best thing to do is keep making slow but steady steps forward. Use this time to better yourselves. I wish us all the best of luck, and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish in the future; I know it will be great for whatever we do.

Senior Year; What’s Next | What of the High School Seniors?

Until now, on Senior Year: What’s Next, I have been telling you the plans of university seniors. I figured it is time to introduce you to a recently graduated high school senior. Enter Nune Papikyan, a freshman at Whittier College who graduated high school in the heat of the pandemic in May 2020.

Like the rest of the class of 2020, Nune’s senior year was canceled due to Covid-19. That meant no prom, no graduation, and online class after online class; on top of all that, universities were handing out a record number of rejection letters.

LA Times reported a record number of rejection rates for California universities in 2020 and 2021 due to the ACT and SAT being optional. While thankful that they could start their college career at Whittier, Nune still couldn’t help but feel a little down.

Currently, Nune is a part of the Whittier Scholars Program, a program designed to allow students to build their own major. Nune is working towards a narrative and documentary film degree.

Like many of us, Nune agrees that online school is nothing like in-person. “I am about to finish my freshman year, and I still have no perception of what college life is really about,” they said. They hope to pack the remaining three or more years with as many experiences as they can. Whether that be with studying abroad, internships or, any opportunities they may come across. They also plan to transfer to hopefully either NYU or Chapman University in the next year or so.

Nune’s experience shows that regardless of whether you are a high school or college senior during the pandemic, we are all at a rough patch. They said it best when they said, “times are really weird right now. We just have to take it a step at a time for now.” and I, for one, agree. The world is beginning to shift back to the way it was slowly. Although it will never be the same new opportunities and experiences, await us. We just have to be patient.

Senior year; What's next? | There is no Need to Rush

For my next installment of Senior Year, What’s Next, I spoke to Jules Rector. Jules recently graduated from Chapman University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Broadcast Journalism and Documentary Film. Before graduating, Jules, like any other senior, was deep in search of a job. To her surprise, on the first day of her search, she was offered a news anchoring job in South Dakota. Typically for freshly graduated seniors, this is unheard of. Jules herself even called it “sketchy.” She had put her reel online, and the station’s news director emailed her about the opening, asking her to send in some more of her on-camera work. After some more discussion and weighing out the cost of living, she decided this would be her next best step. 

In January 2021, Jules moved to South Dakota to start her new job. At first, things were going smoothly, and she was beginning to fit in, but then red flag after red flag started to come forward. Ultimately after a month, she quit. In our interview, Jules told me about several awful expires that lead her to this hard decision.

Starting with the work to pay ratio. Her initial contract was to anchor and help produce the afternoon show. But because of incompetent team members, she was also asked to anchor and produce the morning show. Jules is in no way shy to hard work or a challenge, but considering she was already being paid less than a grocery store worker and she was not being offered a raise, she found this “appalling.” Not that grocery store workers should be paid less, but that a broadcast journalist’s job is not easy, and working nine plus hours with little to no breaks for such a low salary is just unjustified. 

Believe it or not, this wasn’t even her last straw. One icy morning Jules was driving down the hill the station was located on when her car lost traction and began to spin out. She described it as one of the scariest moments of her life. On top of that, her car took four thousand dollars in damage. When you don’t even make four thousand dollars a month, you do not want to be spending that much money to fix your car. 

Although both of these experiences are already terrible, Jules describes this next event as the “icing in the cake .” She had heard from a co-worker that some of her male co-workers in the control room were making incredibly sexist comments and purposefully messing up on air cues. At first, she was willing to ignore this, but not for long. Her co-anchor had informed management of what was happening in the control room, and they took it as a complaint rather than a problem. Word got around to the control room, and before a live broadcast, one of the men began to yell inappropriate comments at Jules co-anchor. She states that watching her co-anchor sob in between breaks because of such lousy treatment was the last straw. Not to mention, later that day, Jules learned that the man yelling at her and her co-anchor is a registered sex offender. All of that being said, and Jules knowing her value, she quit. 

After quitting, she moved back home to Florida and landed a job as a studio coordinator with the home shopping network. Jules has only been at that job for three days now, but she already enjoys it much more than her last. For Jules and all of us, soon-to-be graduating seniors, this was a lesson. A lesson that there is no need to rush. It is perfectly okay to take a step back and evaluate your situation. Know your worth, know your value, and most importantly, prioritize your happiness.

Frenemies Podcast

I post a lot about my series “Senior year; What’s Next” on this blog, But I want to take a moment to talk about one of my favorite podcasts, Frenemies. Frenemies is a podcast co-hosted by Ethan Klein and Trisha Paytas. The duo started as enemies in 2019 when Klein posted a video on Instagram vs. Reality, and Paytas misunderstood the point he was trying to make. At the time, Klein and his wife hosted the H3H3 podcast and invited Paytas to clear the air. Following that episode, the two had a rocky relationship until Paytas entered a relationship with Klein’s brother-in-law. In September 2020, the two started their podcast Frenemies and quickly became YouTube’s most popular podcasts. I love this podcast for several reasons, but my first is just how real and raw it is. Both Ethan and Trisha are known for being themselves on the internet, and this podcast allows them to do more so. They both struggle with mental health and openly discuss it on the show. A someone who has struggled with her fair share of mental health is nice to see other people working in media being so open about it. I am also a fan of the synergy they have. They can go from best friends to enemies in seconds, which makes the podcast very interesting. If you have the time, definitely check them out, but I’m warning you right now some of the topics they discuss can get a bit rated R, so be prepared if you do!

Senior year: What’s Next? | Seniors in stem

For my next installment of “Senior Year: what's next?” I would like to introduce you to UCLA senior Ani Boyadjian. Ani and I are best friends. We met almost eight years ago but have been on our own very different paths for nearly four. I figured here at Chapman University, so many media arts majors surround me. It would be interesting to see senior year during a pandemic through a STEM major’s eyes. 

Ani is fourth-year microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics major at UCLA. And yes, that is all one major. To put it into simpler terms, she is a premed student. Like many of us, Ani’s senior year has also been ‘ruined’ by the pandemic. Instead of spending countless hours in labs working on her research and shadowing doctors, she's stuck behind a computer screen like the rest of us. She says that STEM is already toxic enough for competition between peers, but adding the element of online school has made it significantly worse. From snarky discussion posts to teachers admitting to hardening the curriculum, she describes senior year as “insanity.”

Worst of all, Covid pushed back many key events, projects, and tests that would have aided Ani in her medical school applications. Now just months away from graduation, she and many of her peers are preparing to face dreaded rejections. It is predicted that there will be a record number of medical school rejections from 2021-2022. This is due to an increase in applications. The Association of American Medical Colleges best describes the surge in an analogy. They compare it to the motivation to join the military after 9/11. 

So what exactly should a premed do if they are faced with rejection? Ani plans to take a few gap years and find a job in the medical field. She plans to apply to Kaiser medical school as an analyst/assistant to the Dean of admissions. From there, she hopes to open the door to admission as a student. Her plan is not far off from what is suggested by professionals. St. George’s University, medical school blog suggests taking action after some careful evaluation. 

Ani is hands down one of the smartest girls I know. Anything she puts her mind to she can accomplish, this situation is no different. The path might be tougher this time around, but I know in the end, she will have earned her white lab coat and rose gold stethoscope.

Should Journalists Have both Personal and Private Social Media Accounts?

There is a lot of talk around whether journalists should have both personal and professional accounts, and right off the bat, I want to say that it should be their decision. I know many people who like to share their every living moment on social media, and I also know people who prefer to keep their private life to themselves. According to ONA Ethics at the end of the day, this decision comes down to the individuals’ preference and definition of privacy. 

Obviously with all of this being said what journalists post on their public accounts should be kept to a level of professionalism. Take for example the Associated Press. They encourage their journalists to have social media accounts but they ask them to operate them with holding a reputation in mind. AP journalists are allowed to express their opinions, as long as they do so in a respectful manner. 

Then comes the question of, who gets to own these accounts? The journalists or the companies? Once again I believe that this comes down to the circumstances. It makes sense if you are a personality or a popular anchor or correspondent that you would manage and own your own account. On the flip side, if you work for a company that is all about branding, it makes sense that they would own your account while you are employed by them.

Personally, I would like to keep my work life and professional life separate. I am not the biggest fan of social media and I am not a fan of sharing my life via filtered snapshots. But I do believe that every journalist should have the right to decide how much of their privacy they wish to share.