My final entry

I can't beleive that I am in my final week of BorderBeat
and more importantly college. It has been an informative, fun and intense semester; just as the last four and a half years have been an incredible learning experience.

Maintaining my blog for this class provided me with a great opportunity to tell another side of many stories that I reported on for class, my side. After reporting on and writing articles about border issues from a legal prospective, I often used my blog to reflect upon my experience, or to use more opinionated information and quotes from my sources that didn't fit the balanced nature of a news story.

A great example of this can be seen with one of my first stories on local politician Rodney Glassman. My story was a quick biography on his career as it relates to border issues, but my blog entry on Glassman was a much deeper look at my impressions of him. While it is important to note that the blog entries are reporting flavored with opinion, they are useful in different ways as they allow me to dive deeply into an issue, something that is often impossible to do without letting opinions sneak in. I feel that there is nothing wrong with this, provided that I make clear what is my opinion and that I don't try to pass it off as an unbiased fact.

Other examples of me telling different aspects of stories or interjecting opinions into reporting from news stories can be seen in my pieces on James Gregg and Ed McCullough.

When not doubling up work I did for other journalism classes, I drew on past experiences or Web research to write on other border related legal issues.

Aside from blogging experience, BorderBeat taught me how to incorporate media into storytelling. It proved to be an extremely useful course that taught me many things that should have a very practical application in the real world.

Speaking of the real world (a place I will enter frightfully soon), I feel that the UA has prepared me rather well for that. I first visited this beautiful campus when I was in 8th grade and have been in love with the school ever since. It was a dream of mine to go to school in a very different place so far from home (Chicago) and I can't beleive that my 4-year study abroad trip as my father calls it will be coming to a close.

I plan to start classes again next fall at a yet to be determined law school in Chicago and I look forward to the experience. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that being buried in books about law in the cold Midwest won't compare to the flip flop wearing paradise of a few hours of class a day in a place where the sun shines over 300 days a year.