Lets Get Practical

So there I was sitting in class listening to a lecture on running stories when the head of my department came running into the classroom and, acting like a random-passerby, said that she just saw 2 of the London eye's capsules explode and she thought she would tell a local news center. Of course my professor just smiled and said, "I think you all have a story to report, check the board for your groups and I need the first copy of that story in my email in a half hour."

It was then I realized I was not at a UC school anymore. I was no longer in a school for research and overarching theoretical concepts, I was here to learn on my feet, and I literally did just that. What happened next was mayhem, all of the competitive and over eager writers like myself jumped up and ran to the board to see what groups we were in and each found our own unique ways to find our co-workers who we had never met before. From there, 2 of my mates stayed in the news room at a computer to do the writing and editing while I went with another classmate to do the interviewing and reporting.

You have to love the staff. Everyone in the department was in on the exercise. One room was dedicated to quarterly press conferences staged by some of my professors and others roamed the department acting as police officers, eye-witnesses and workers. We had three stories due over the course of a few hours and I had a blast running around the halls of my department interviewing people and competing side by side with my peers to get the best story out by deadline. Of course we had to juggle terrorist allegations, rumors and contradicting stories and, like little detectives, had to dig until we were given the final facts only minutes before the last deadline.

Needless to say, there was no attack at the London Eye, Prince Harry wasn't inside like we thought and there was no real bomb threat. Lightening had caught fire some excess oil and Prince Harry had decided to cancel his reservations for the day although one worker who had fire burns did end up dying (all fictional of course).

To say I enjoyed myself would be an understatement. The whole exercise was so stressful but so much fun and I could not help but smile and wait for more.

Fourth day at school and I knew I was in the right place!