Author: smiths1

By Jay Jaywood

November 13, 2015

When searching for new classes to take, most students have the same kinds of questions. Is the class required for their major?  If it is not, is the class fun?  The UAB Professional Writing Program’s series of community writing classes, Writing In Birmingham and Writing In The Community, are engaging classes that help students look thoughtfully at the community around them and discover that the act of writing can be an agent of change for Birmingham.

Writing In Birmingham is a 300-level class that hinges on the history of Birmingham and a service learning project involving Inglenook Elementary school. The first portion of the class centers around the book Leaving Birmingham, a fascinating oral history of UAB’s city that spans from the city’s founding to the early 1990s.

While learning about the city’s history through various viewpoints, students also have assignments that force them into the city itself. In one assignment, students write a creative non-fiction piece about a place in the city.

Other assignments include interviewing and writing a profile of a local business owner or community member who is making strides to create change in Birmingham. 

Writing With Purpose

Writing In Birmingham hits its stride when it begins its service learning project. The Writing In Birmingham class partners with Inglenook Elementary School for a writing project. 

The four-week project sees UAB students engaging elementary school students about the writing process. The Inglenook students learn about brainstorming, outlining, writing, and revising over the course of the project. At the end of the project, the writings are compiled into a Newsletter and the students are celebrated with the principal, superintendent, family, and teachers all in attendance.

Writing In Birmingham is a fantastic class for learning about the Birmingham community, whether a Professional Writing major or not.

Writing In The Community, a 400-level class, follows a similar vein as Writing In Birmingham. While Writing In Birmingham focuses on the entire community, Writing In The Community is a semester long induction into the grant writing process for a local non-profit. 

This year’s chosen non-profit, Workshops, Inc., is situated in Avondale and helps people with several different kinds of disabilities find jobs. Through the class, students learn about the organization’s history, its goals, and ways that it engages with the community for change. Students tour the facility and have a town-hall-esque Q&A with its director.

This gets focused into an agency profile written by the students. 

Students also interview and profile a person currently at Workshops, telling his or her story in conjunction with the organization. The class culminates with a grant writing project that takes students step-by-step through the grant writing process for a non-profit. 

As non-profits survive off of donations and grant money, grant writing is an integral part of brand raising and awareness. Each piece of writing gets compiled into a file given to Workshops, Inc., to help with their future grant writing processes.

Community Writing Benefits

Through both classes, students gain invaluable skills that can help throughout their academic and professional careers. Each class has interviews that help develop students’ interpersonal communication skills. 

Both classes also require research and understanding of the local community that must be done outside of class.

Because of the amount of projects in each class, the classes adhere to strict due dates and guidelines. Communication, timeliness, and an understanding of the context and community are all skills that will follow a student through academia and beyond. Furthermore, an early understanding and mastery of these skills can certainly help any new graduate succeed in the workplace.

The series of community writing classes at UAB are designed to get students to begin asking questions about their community and learn how to address these problems through writing with a purpose.

Taking these classes not only help students form a better understanding of challenging writing processes, but also help students develop an appreciation of the city they will call home for four years of their life. 

By Ivana Hrynkiw

November 13, 2015

In the Professional Writing Program at UAB, internships are not required. If a student choses to, he or she can take a capstone class instead to fill that credit. If you choose the latter option, you’re making a terrible, terrible mistake.

Internships are hard. They’re hard to find–internship director Cynthia Ryan says internships aren’t required for PW students because of potential conflicts with time management, but those that do have interned for Greater Birmingham Ministries, Birmingham Home and Garden, Weld, The Alabama Literacy Council, and UAB’s Digital Media Center.

Most internship programs only hire one or two interns, so the application process is nerve-racking. You probably won’t get all of the internships you apply for- and that’s okay. You learned how to write a great cover letter, you updated your resume, and you probably got some interviewing practice as well out of the whole ordeal. And, if you go back and apply to that company after graduation, there’s a good chance they’ll remember you as that awesome student who wanted to intern for them.

But, what if you do get it? If you land an internship, you’re landing one of the best opportunities of your college career. You will learn ten times what you learned in your classrooms, you will meet people in the professional writing field, and you may even get paid for it. Also, if you’re doing an internship as a senior, you may even slide right into a job without having to have the stressful experience of job hunting and begging people to give you a chance.

The first day will always be the hardest. You’ll walk in and, I promise, you will have no idea what you’re doing. No matter how hard you studied in class, no matter how many times you have seen your teachers for help, you’re going to be confused.

The best part is that your boss will completely accept that- they know that students have usually had no other experience outside of the classroom and that you wanted to intern to learn. You’re going to mess up, and you will learn from your mistakes. Don’t be embarrassed—that’s expected.

The first day of one of my internships, I made a list for my boss. The list included: Can I wear sandals?; Do I get a lunch break?; Where is my desk?; Is the coffee free?; and many others. My boss barely cracked a smile, and returned my list by the end of the day with answers scribbled down the margins. Then, knowing how embarrassed I was, assured me that they were valuable questions (they weren’t) and never mentioned the process again.

But, by the end of the day, I knew what I should wear to look like a seasoned employee and that I did indeed get a full hour to eat lunch. It was probably the most helpful thing anyone did for me that summer.

By the end of the semester, or the year depending on how long your internship runs, you won’t believe that you didn’t know so many of the things you’re now doing on a daily basis. You will grow professionally- you will know how to talk around a water cooler (if your office has a water cooler, which in my opinion is a dying machine), how to interview for a job, how to make friends in the office- all vital parts of functioning after graduation.

Dr. Ryan says, “Students who intern are introduced to the day-to-day operations of an organization. They experience firsthand what writers are expected to do to meet the needs of various stakeholders, which often involves a lot of research and planning, in addition to composing, that students have learned about but not necessarily seen in action.”

I agree with Dr. Ryan’s point. There is only so much you can learn in the classroom — everything else has to be learned on the job. Every job, even if it is in the same field, is going to be different and different things are going to be required. At some jobs, you may have an assistant to help do research. At others, you may have to be a one-man-band.

These are things that cannot be taught in the classroom, because they’re not expected. The only way to learn them is to experience them.

I’ve done multiple internships in college, and I’m hoping to work for one of them when I graduate this December. I interned for a television station, where I once forgot to turn the camera on. I interned for a newspaper, where I forgot a pen and paper for the biggest interview of my career. I interned for a magazine where I printed the wrong dates for an event.

This is why internships are so vital. These mistakes, as terrible as they sound, are really not so bad. I went back with the camera to film a segment, I borrowed paper and a pen from the person I interviewed, and I apologized to the event creators for the mistake.

These mistakes are okay in an internship, because I learned from them. They wouldn’t be okay in a job, though. Get your mistakes out of the way, so you don’t have to make them when it counts.

By Sarah Dillard

November 13, 2015

Alexandria Merrill is a UAB senior originally from Birmingham who is currently interning at Good Grit magazine. After moving away when she was young, Alex decided to come back three years ago to go to UAB. She always knew that she wanted to be an English major, and “chose UAB because it was actually one of the only schools that had an undergrad program for professional writing in this area.” In the past, Alex worked at UAB student media as a features editor, she did some work for small, local businesses, and she has also worked in marketing. Even though Alex has had a lot of work experience, Good Grit is her first internship. Good Grit is a southern magazine based in Birmingham that wishes to share the rich culture of the South with the rest of the world. The magazine is very new, and has just recently released their third issue.

Alex found out about Good Grit magazine through her friend Peyton Chandler who was interning at Good Grit at the time. “He asked me to come in to meet with the editor about writing, they had a few stories that nobody wanted…he was like ‘could you please come in and meet with her and see if you would want to take these stories, we can’t find anyone else to take them.’”

Alex agreed and after the stories had gone to print, she decided that she needed to go back. “I was like the editor’s going to forget me. I was like one in however many writers that they have in like their freelance pool.

“They sent out a mass email saying that they were doing a writer’s round table and anybody interested in writing should come, and so I went…and while I was there she [the editor] was like ‘Hey, I remember you. I want you to apply for this internship.’ And so, it was really just a connection, you know, having a friend, getting a recommendation, and putting myself out there multiple times.”

After asking why she decided to apply for the internship, Alex said that, “I think that it is increasingly becoming my dream to make it as a freelance writer or an editor, and this seemed like the best opportunity to break into that.”

When asked about her internship with Good Grit, Alex said that, “Interning at a startup is so different from interning somewhere corporate, because you get so much more hands-on experience than you would if you were in a larger corporation setting.”

When I asked her what her favorite thing about interning at Good Grit was, she said, “One of my favorite things [about the internship] are the relationships that I’ve gotten through this experience. Not only with my fellow interns, but with my bosses at work.”

Internships are very rewarding; they are great for networking and for gaining job experience. Some people are misinformed about internships; you don’t just grab coffee and answer the phone. Professional writing internships are basically where you learn the inner workings of how articles are written, edited, and published. Internships require time and dedication.

“You definitely have to want to be there” Alex says, “and you have to be self motivated, because you’re not getting paid; you’re there for the experience, you’re there to learn everything that you can, and do as much as they’ll let you do.”

At UAB, you can either do a senior capstone or you can do a senior internship. Alex had already done the senior capstone last spring, so her internship at Good Grit doesn’t count for credit.

Alex decided to do an internship because she wanted to have experience in the career that she was going into. Without an internship, it can be hard to find a job. As it turns out, nobody wants to hire you if you don’t have any experience.

“Just so people know,” Alex said, “today I asked my editor if we could sit down and talk about my schedule for next semester…and while we were talking about everything, I got offered a job. Internships do go somewhere, and even if they had not offered me a job with them, I know that they would have given me a recommendation… I know that it’s everybody’s dream to get to graduation and know what they’re gonna be doing and I just really think that internships help with that.”

Everyone should try to do an internship. Internships are a great way to branch out and discover what you want to do for the rest of your life. They help you build connections that can last for a lifetime. Also, if you would like to apply for an internship at Good Grit, they do an internship cycle each semester; all you have to do is reach out and set up an interview.

By Sydnei Wheat

November 13, 2015

It all started with an equipment request from UAB’s Digital Media Commons. Or rather, a failed one, actually.

Several weeks ago, I was in need of a recorder for an interview and like other rampant phone users, I searched numerous app stores to find a quality app that could do the job. However, despite finding several prospects, I still wanted to use the best tech available. The Digital Media Commons equipment checkout service suddenly occurred to me-though I had never used it before.

The Digital Media Commons is “an open resource lab featuring 20 iMac stations loaded with professional-grade creative software, a media classroom designed for collaborative learning, the Soundlab recording booth, and equipment available for checkout” (https://www.uab.edu/cas/digitalmedia/about).

Also known on campus as the DMC, the creative lab is a part of the College of Arts and Sciences and is located in Heritage Hall. It is a great resource for students within digital media courses and majors or any student with immediate digital media needs.

Once at the DMC and the equipment checkout station, I promptly asked for a particular audio recorder.

Two questions ensued from the office manager: Are you a College of Arts and Sciences student? Are you enrolled in a digital media course?

Of course, I answered yes to both questions, explaining that I was an English Major and enrolled in a Professional Writing course. However, while I qualified for the former, the latter presented curious results.

The office manager responded that while I was a College of Arts and Science student, the class I told him of was not listed as a media course.

Really? How can a class titled, Developing Digital Documents, not be listed among other media courses such as: Film Technology, Visual Media, Fundamentals of Broadcasting and even 4D Foundation. It seemed like a natural and obvious fit.

In fact, according to their university website, none of the Professional Writing courses are listed as “media courses.”

Well, that’s a conundrum. How could a concentration steeped in the learning and usage of digital content and software, not be viewed among the other academics as a digital/technical pedagogy?

Suffice to say, I didn’t get the audio recorder.

Media Is Our Forte

My overall experience at the DMC brings into context the larger question of how the field of Professional Writing is viewed among other media disciplines. Despite the discipline’s excessive use of technology and software, it’s not considered a legitimate part of the digital/technology community. Indeed, many people still believe that Professional Writers just write. 

But that’s only half of what we do.

Professionals across the field employ skills from multiple disciplines like graphic design, information technology, and publishing and more in their careers.

They create documents, videos, websites, and wide range of other communication acts using a variety of design software. In the EH 340: Developing Digital Documents course alone, students enter a pattern of regular involvement with the creative design software found within Adobe’s Creative Cloud.

So why is it difficult for others to see Professional Writing as both a writing and media discipline?

One answer might come in the fact that Professional Writing-as a field of study- is placed within the context of the English major. However, unlike Professional Writing: Literature, Linguistics and Creative Writing, do not actively use or practice design skills or theory in their pedagogy.

While Professional Writing’s association with these fields is warranted (with its inherent use of writing and rhetoric), it also facilitates a view of PW that confines it to English and writing discourse. This keeps Professional Writing (as a discipline) from being understood in its entirety by professionals and students outside of it.

Another answer could reside in the field of Professional Writing itself.

Despite having the overall objectives of producing content that is clear, concise and practical for users, the field of Professional Writing is still not a well-defined one. In fact, many of its students and practitioners still find it difficult to describe. And it’s not hard to see why.

Professional Writing (in its formal study) is a fairly young field and theories of practice are still developing even in the use of rhetoric. Professional Writers struggle to narrow the field into simple terms whilst also showcasing the wide range of skills that they produce, resulting in a barrier of communication not only with those outside of the field, but those within it as well.

While Professional Writing will continue to stay within the English pedagogy, a tentative definition can be offered for easier understanding by all. Professional Writing is the strategic application of concepts of rhetoric and principles of composition onto multiple media, in order to produce effective and clear communication acts to and across specific social communities using their discourses.

However one wishes to define the field, one thing is clear. Professional Writing is more than just a writing discipline.

By Em Wiginton

November 13, 2015

The Professional Writing Program has come a long way since Dr. Bruce McComiskey and Dr. Cynthia Ryan started it seventeen years ago.

While the curriculum once leaned more towards purely technical and business writing, the shift towards technology in content creation has made knowledge of digital platforms just as important as composition in the field. It’s more valuable than ever for professional writers to be well-versed in rhetoric, composition, and ethics, but knowledge of platforms like Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, and Scribus have become just as important.

Taking the nature of these changes into consideration, the staff of the Professional Writing department has in turn decided to make some changes to the curriculum.

Why Is It Changing?

With developing technology constantly changing the way we look at writing and content production, these changes have been a long time coming, but they weren’t set in motion until a couple of years ago. Changes in faculty—that is, three new hires to the Professional Writing team—have been instrumental in moving the program into the future. Dr. Chris Minnix, Dr. Jaclyn Wells, and Dr. Jeffrey Bacha respectively specialize in rhetoric, composition, and digital publishing, bringing the Professional Writing program beyond just business and technical writing.

Although these professors have been part of the Professional Writing family at UAB for a few years now, Professional Writing Program Director Dr. Bruce McComiskey cites them as the reason why the program now offers flexible paths for both the business and technical sides of PW and the more technology-based ones. “We were hiring people then whose interests weren’t the interests that started the program seventeen years ago,” he spoke in an interview. “And so we just started to talk about what would be the best structure for a program.”

What Is It Changing?

In the spirit the multifaceted nature of Professional Writing, these changes will offer students the chance to choose an aspect of the field that they feel best fits them. Professional Writing majors and minors will now take Intro to Professional Writing (EH 315), as well as their choice of Professional Writing electives– four for the major and five for the minor.

There are options for students who want to specifically focus in in digital design, composition, rhetoric, business/technical writing, or a combination of all of these aspects. Dr. McComiskey believes these changes will allow students to study the kind of Professional Writing that best fits the kind of career they’ll someday pursue, with the new Intro class being the perfect starting point for any of these.

“Students were not happy about having to take courses in other areas when their true interests lay in one,” he said in an interview. “We (also) realized we didn’t have a course that was serving as an intro to all the others, so we established 315. We’re very excited.”

Secondly, a Professional Writing requirement will be added to the English major core alongside the pre-existing requirements in Literature and Linguistics.

While English majors will have a choice in what course to fulfill their Professional Writing requirement with, Intro to Professional Writing is thought to be the best option for those wishing to see exactly what it is that Professional Writers do. This class heavily focuses on rhetoric and ethics in document creation, but also gives students the chance to work with real clients to produce real documents for real-world use, including memos, newsletters, pamphlets, and other multimedia projects.

When Is It Changing?

In this vein, the changes in curriculum are going into effect at a better time than ever– right at the start of the 2015-2016 catalogue. Next fall, Dr. Minnix will offer an Advanced Composition course that will help students “develop a powerful rhetorical toolkit that we will use to analyze the work of a variety of advocates, politicians, activists, hell-raisers, and gadflies (past and present) who have used rhetoric to advocate for change in their societies.”

For those interested in the educational aspect of Professional Writing, Dr. Wells is offering Tutoring Writing, which promises to “balance reading and discussion with hands-on experience and observation in the University Writing Center”. On the technical side is Dr. Bacha’s Digital Publishing course, where students will be “introduced to a variety of industry standard communication technologies designed to help them prepare and publish interactive information (including web-based and video productions) designed to function in a number of different communication contexts”.

By Brandon Varner

November 13, 2015

I had a friend years ago who always said, “It’s not the grades you make, it’s the hands you shake.”

In my experience, I have found this adage to be true, especially in making professional connections. That friend has since flunked out of school, but I have used his advice to secure an internship, and I couldn’t thank him enough for his words.

I currently work as the Video Intern at The David Mathews Center for Civic Life, an organization that works to solve problems plaguing many communities throughout Alabama. The workers go to each county in the state in three to four year cycles to discuss specific issues, whether it’s teen pregnancy, the high school dropout rate, or something more dangerous to the population as a whole.

I met someone going to a friend’s birthday party probably two or three years ago who would later contact me about the internship opportunity. We had a nice conversation on a couple of other occasions when I saw her at parties around town, but other than that it was a relatively brief friendship that parted on amicable terms.

There is nothing that I can attribute more than my experience on campus when it came to acquiring my internship. I was contacted by this friend earlier this year, after she had seen that I had done some video editing. She offered me the position of a video intern and I readily accepted. Always make an effort to cultivate friendships when you can because you never know what the future holds, or as my boss in student media says, “Be a Bro.”

There are several organizations on campus that can, if not get you an internship or later a job, at least give you the tools that you need to succeed. Through the Professional Writing concentration and classes that I had taken, I gained skills in the Adobe Suite that helped me gain a position on the staff of UAB’s student newspaper, Kscope, as the Features Editor. Indesign is critical in the process of laying out many modern publications, and by becoming acquainted with its ins and outs from a technical standpoint I have gained the freedom to more easily express myself from that design standpoint when it came to putting pages together. Along with Indesign, I also learned Photoshop which I use almost everyday to make pictures properly presentable for print in addition to a host of other applications.

After spending a semester on the staff, I advanced to Managing Editor and, in the quest to gain more marketable skills to put on a resumé, decided that I needed to learn how to shoot and edit videos. Our Production Manager was more than happy to sit with me and walk me through the process of lighting, shooting and editing video. After his tutelage, I was confident and capable of taking that internship that came shortly after.

Without the experience of the faculty advisors in Student Media, I would never be as capable as I am now, which has opened many doors. Before joining the staff, I would have never imagined that I would gain the ability to produce videos, lay out publications and create minimal graphic design.

There are few things that can be more helpful for one’s career development than joining an organization on campus. Not everyone will meet someone who will hand them an internship at a birthday party, and for those who do not have that luxury, you could do a lot worse than the built-in network provided by organizations on campus.

I am good friends with a former member of the Professional Writing Club who now works on the editorial staff for a local magazine.

Though I was never a member of the club, knowing her has given me an advantage in getting a pitch for the magazine approved over the people coming in cold and hoping to receive a bit of attention, in my opinion.

Networking is more than just going to boring events with a handful of business cards and hoping everyone gets to know you inorganically. It’s a process of surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals from whom you are not only looking to gain something from, but whom you can also help when the opportunity arises.

So the next time a friend asks you to go to their birthday party and you’re on the fence because your show finally hit Netflix and you really need to catch up, maybe consider putting it off for just a little while longer. You never know where the night will take you, for years and years to come.

By Kalyn Wells

November 13, 2015

When students in the Professional Writing Program begin thinking about applying for an internship, most assume they will be sitting at a desk writing articles for a whole summer.

Students rarely think about the other tasks that can be done by an editorial intern that will help build the publication. The tasks that I had to complete at my internship at Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) over the summer gave me the skills and knowledge I needed in order to acquire a better grasp on the entire editorial process.

Some of these tasks even prompted me to take certain professional writing courses.

When I say “tasks,” I mean real tasks. I don’t mean the stereotypical task of “getting coffee,” as I had heard too often before. I even expected that this is what I would be doing all summer. This clearly wasn’t my experience.

Within the three months I was an intern at WMU, I completed numerous tasks for the editor, copy editor, and even the administrative assistant. I was able to experience a few team meetings to help prepare for upcoming issues of the magazine. I also learned what it means to be a “team player” and how to do things that were outside of my interests and comfort zone.

The editorial process involves the company preparing for a year’s worth of monthly issues for the magazine a year before they are to be published.

My first and my main project at WMU was to assign the writers to an article type and the specific topic they wanted to write about. This task was time-consuming because it took much thought to prevent assigning the same topic to two different writers.

Also, in this project, I received a great amount of emails during the day from the writers. Some would change their mind, some would give me way too many options, and some didn’t give enough. The editor would then double-check the chart in which the names, topics, due date, and publication date were typed in to make sure that everything was correct and that the writers’ contracts were ready to be printed and signed.

This task did involve sitting at a computer for long hours at a time in a quiet environment. I really had to focus and make sure every detail was right.

Another important task I had to complete involved working with the copy editor. She works on the current issues being published and edits the articles for those issues that come in.

Whenever she receives a draft of the article, she checks for grammar, punctuation, and all of the other necessary elements. Once the article is proofread and corrected, it is then incorporated with the design layout and images are added to it. The copy editor then checks the layout and images to make sure everything lines up and is correct. If there are any changes to be made, she does it in Adobe InDesign.

The article is reprinted and she checks for any changes, again! I assisted her in checking for errors in the reprinted version of the article with the layout design and image included.

This was the point in my internship where I learned that I would be working with Adobe InDesign in my future career and that I needed to gain more knowledge on it after my internship ended.

One thing I had to do that was out of my comfort zone was speaking up in meetings about the next publication. I sat with all of the members who had anything to do with the publishing of the magazine, such as the editor, copy editor, graphic designer, and assistant editor. It was hard for me to be comfortable enough, as an intern, to throw my ideas out there and give criticism. Although I progressed throughout my internship, I knew that I needed to familiarize myself with talking in front of other people, sharing my ideas, and giving my opinion of others’ ideas.

For a small portion of the internship, I assisted the administrative assistant with organizational tasks. These included adding contact information to spreadsheets on Excel for a convention that WMU holds at the end of the summer, delivering mail, and wrapping gifts for guests at the convention.

Although these seem like meaningless tasks, they all helped me in some way.

Adding the names familiarized me with Excel, delivering mail allowed me get to know the other employees better, and wrapping the gifts taught me how to be a team player just by helping out others.

After being introduced to all of those tasks, I decided to register for the Developing Digital Documents class. Even though it is not required for my major, this class acted as a part two to my internship.

In this class I have gained experience in using InDesign. I have also developed a better grasp on what it’s like to build a publication.

From finding different fonts to giving feedback on other students’ work, this class has given me more insight on how publishing meetings work and what kind of comments are to be made in those meetings. Editing and rearranging have been significant components of this course as well.

In reverse to what is usually done, my internship introduced me to the programs that I would be using in building a publication, while the class gives me a more hands on experience.

An editorial internship is a great experience for a student who wants to have a career in the Professional Writing field. This particular kind of internship is important if they want to work behind the scenes in a publication, such as a managing editor or copy editor, as well as writing the articles and understanding how their own articles will be placed and edited.

By Allison Underwood

November 13, 2015

Haley Townsend graduated from UAB in the Summer of 2015 with her BA in English Professional Writing and a minor in Business Administration. Since then, she has secured a job as Digital Content Producer for WIAT 42 News. Haley is responsible for posting new content to the station’s website and updating various media platforms.

During her time at UAB, Haley was active in the Kaleidoscope student newspaper and the Professional Writing Club. Here, she gained the experience necessary to obtain a job after graduation.

Haley proves that the concentration is very useful and businesses are looking for talented professional writers. Memorandum recently caught up with Haley to ask her a few questions about her current situation:

What is a digital content producer?

“A digital content producer is a person who creates, produces, edits, manages and posts multimedia content to various digital platforms for an organization.”

How do you use aspects of professional writing at WIAT 42 News?

“I use so much of what I learned in the professional writing program at my job now. I use Photoshop, I write for the web multiple times a day, I use WordPress, insert hyperlinks, work with video and utilize social media and content marketing.”

How did the concentration prepare you for your current job?

“The concentration allowed me to hone my writing skills for digital contexts. I remember being in the professional writing course you’re in now, talking about how we all everyday consume a massive amount of written content on our smart phones. Well, now I’m one of many people who help to produce that digital content.”

Do you feel that the program lacks in any areas? Explain.

“Honestly? The digital world advances so fast. There’s a lot that the program could focus on. For example, writing for SEO, or search engine optimization. How to really use social media to get people to read your work. The biggest thing I didn’t understand when I started my job is content marketing. I think that could be a whole class, focusing on that aspect of the digital world.”

What would you have done differently during your time as an undergrad, if anything?

“I probably would have taken more professional writing courses. I didn’t understand what the concentration was about until later in my undergraduate career. I also would have started writing for publications much earlier. It seemed so daunting, but now I hit publish every day on words I write, and thousands—sometimes tens of thousands—of people read what I write. I would have also taken a course in news writing, but turns out I didn’t really need it!”

You were active in the Professional Writing Club and Kaleidoscope. How did these activities outside the classroom help you?

“I wasn’t as active in PWC as I would have liked, as Kscope basically enveloped my senior year. Regardless, Kscope was invaluable in landing my current job. It gave me so much experience, as a copy editor, social media editor and ultimately editor-in-chief, that my resume spoke for itself.”

How do you “sell yourself” as a professional writer?

“Speaking of my resume speaking for itself, I wasn’t even looking for a job when my current boss found me via LinkedIn. Employers are looking for someone that will work hard and take care of what needs to be done. You need to offer a unique skill set that solves a problem that they have.

I sold myself via a completely fleshed out LinkedIn profile, with links to all my best published work and anything and everything that was relevant to the job I envisioned for myself. And it fell in my lap. I also had an extensive personal website that emphasized my personal brand that was a part of my LinkedIn profile. You need this to sell yourself—your personal brand, and plenty of examples of your best work that proves you are a professional writer that someone not only wants, but needs to hire.”

What advice would you give to students currently in the program?

“Write. Get to know yourself and what kind of work environment you thrive in. Do you like a busy, loud team driven environment with a crazy fast pace? You might love a newsroom. Do you like to work on projects alone? Consider being a digital brand journalist. Whatever it is that makes you happy, you need to find it and pursue it with everything you’ve got.

The best way to figure out what makes you happy is to do several internships across various aspects of professional writing: communications, PR, news, advertising. Find your niche, and when you go to apply for that post-grad job, you’ll have ample experience.”

What do you miss the most about being a student at UAB?

“The opportunity to learn so many different things in one place. I definitely don’t miss the parking.”