The University of Blog

Goodness, what a busy day!

It began with my News Writing lab course. We started with a classmate interview and our story is due on Thursday. It will be a lot of hands-on work, but that is the best way to learn. That is the definition of the “Missouri Method.” Then, I had my Fundamentals of TV, Radio and Photojournalism class. I will begin researching three story ideas that I will spend a majority of the class exploring. Then I had my Introduction to Film Analysis class and we discussed Mise en scene (everything that goes on in the film) in The Graduate.

Also, I filled out my paperwork for my new job at Sycamore, a contemporary American restaurant. I will begin as a busser and go from there. I will be there every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. This means that I will need to record Grey’s Anatomy and be an avid multitasker (which I am anyway).

Today was my first day and I am ready to start the semester!

My first class was in the maze of Lafferre. I think that my Advanced Spanish Composition class will be really worthwhile. A lot of Spanish reading, but at least it will be an opportunity to improve my Spanish skills. I am pursuing a Spanish minor to give me a few more options in journalism.

The next class I had was my humanities course, The Ancient Era through the Honors College. I think it will be really satisfying learning more about Virgil, Plato, Aristotle and Homer because it seems like so much is based off of the Greeks. The humanities course is similar to a “Great Books” course. After that I had a mini- break until my News Writing lecture where we discussed the importance of news.

My last class of today was my Introduction to Film Analysis. We watched The Graduate and tomorrow we will discuss it. Tomorrow I will know more about how my semester will look. I do, however, know it will be busy!

I am all moved and excited for my sophomore year. School starts tomorrow and I was enjoying my last few days of freedom. To fully kick my semester off right, I went to get free Shakespeare’s Pizza. It may have been just for freshman, but I will never pass up free food. The rain hovered over the day, but I will not let rain stop me from getting a good deal.

Then came Tiger Walk, which is where the freshman walk through the columns to start their first year at Mizzou. I was tempted to attend for the free tiger stripe ice cream, but living off campus makes getting to those events a little more difficult.

Thursday night was the Midnight BBQ with what else, free food and a DJ. Friday I went to the fall welcome events at Lowry Mall. One of these was a hypnotist. Volunteering for this event, I did silly things on stage. The funniest thing was when one guy was talking in a different language and another translated for him. I don’t think that it worked so well for me, but it did give an excuse to do silly things on stage.

I went to my first class of the new semester: Principles of American Journalism. This class covers media ethics, legality, the role of the journalist, and much more. Basically, the class will cover the structure of Journalism and what News is. It is a big lecture hall class with hundreds of journalism students (every journalism student has to take it).

Welcome back students! I hope that classes are going well for you so far. My schedule seems a little unbalanced. I have 5 classes on Monday and Wednesday and 1 on Tuesday and Thursday. Goodness. We’ll see. It will be a challenging semester, but hopefully worth it.

Be careful as you are heading back to Mizzou. It is supposed to snow Saturday Night until Sunday Afternoon. We don’t start until Tuesday so be safe. (This post might be just an excuse to show my pretty snow-covered Mizzou pics but still, drive carefully )

Meet me, Laura Parkinson, dedicated college student from Lawrence, KS. I began at the University of Missouri in Columbia, MO this year. This is actually making me a rebel considering I live in the rival territory. Yes, I crossed the border to attend school at one of the best journalism schools in the country. I am interested in Convergence journalism which is a little of everything. Convergence is using the Internet to connect the various media.

Enough about school, I’ll be talking enough about it. I really enjoy fashion and movies. Lots of movies. I work at the movie theater in Lawrence and like to see movies (did I say that?) They are free and fit in my starving college budget. I also like Hello Kitty. I am 18 and I like Hello Kitty, but hey, I’m a girl and I can be a little crazy and childish.

Enjoy my blog and soon it will be expanded to include your experiences as well. I am a new blogger so welcome, and please, if you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Don’t be a stranger!!

Mission: To help college students and high school students realize the idiosyncrasies of their schools or potential schools for the benefit of all students. This site is possible by the participation of students (just me at first) sharing their real, honest college experiences.

I created this blog to help both college students and high school students find unique insights about their colleges. The college experience is very vast ranging from living with a roommate to navigating through the registration process. As a college freshman, I realize this and would like to help students as much as possible. The hope is to make the experience a little easier for everyone.

And what makes me qualified to begin this blog? As I mentioned before, I am a freshman at the University of Missouri in Columbia. I went through the entire college application experience and decided on Mizzou. I am exploring the city as well as the college and it as a never-ending process. I love it. And if you are interested in writing about your own school, the hope is that this site will expand to include your experiences as well.