Issue date: 10/27/09 Section: Opinions

By the time classes start tomorrow, I will have been gone from Charleston for at least a few hours. I'm on my way to Austin, Texas, in a van full of excited (and probably sleeping) journalism majors and professors.

We're heading to Texas for the College Media Advisers Convention.

My mom was thrilled when I told her I signed up for the convention. She went on and on about how good this will look on my resume and all the important things I'm going to learn.

The last time I went to a convention, The Mid-America Press Institute's convention on multimedia journalism, I was made mock editor in chief in a session on how to make a news story work with different multimedia outlets. I led a team of about five student journalists and one professional photojournalist.

Those few hours on that afternoon in St. Louis prepared me for my job as editor in chief of The Daily Eastern News this past summer.

When I've mentioned my trip to other people, a few made comments like "Oh, you're not going to really learn anything," or "You're just going so you can say you've been to Texas."

I admit, at first, that may have been true. But the more I thought about it, the more excited I became about the fact that I would be surrounded by hundreds of student journalists; people who are going through the same things I'm going through, and people who have ideas and suggestions for how to make every part of being a student journalist better.

One of my main worries lately is that I will be graduating in May and entering one of the most competitive job markets in the world.

Conventions, like CMA and MPI, are like "Karate Kid" movies for journalists.

We get first-hand accounts of the reality of journalism, and are taught how to apply it. Yes, there are sessions that can be boring. But when the time comes, you will remember what that one speaker said and know exactly how to face the situation.

I know other departments are heading to conventions soon as well. The College of Education and Professional Studies, for example, will have a conference on the English Language Learners this weekend. The conference will be in Buzzard Hall and discuss teaching strategies.

My sister, a graduate student in the archaeology program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, has attended conferences held by the Wisconsin Federation of Museums, the Anthropology Association of America and the Archaeology Institute of America. These conferences were part of her graduate program's curriculum and job at the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Attending conferences and conventions allows people to network with others in their field, creating professional acquaintances and possible job opportunities.

When Dan Thornburgh, veritable patriarch of the journalism department at Eastern, spoke to my feature writing class two years ago, he said, "It's who you know and where you see them again (that determines) what happens to you."

I have been living by that statement, and that's why I'm on my way to Texas.

See you on Monday, Eastern!

Sarah Jean Bresnahan is a senior journalism major and can be reached at 581-7942 or DENopinions@gmail.com.

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