Have degree, need job

This morning was San Jose State University's commencement at Spartan Stadium. I joined a couple thousand other graduates for the festivities.


San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed was the commencement speaker and told us that we need to go out and be leaders. He also said that San Jose and Silicon Valley needs us.


Most of San Jose is covered today by fog and smoke from the fire burning in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I hope that the smoke is not a bad omen for the graduates.

My favorite thing from today's ceremony was a decorated cap. I should have done the same thing.


The more important event for me was the School of Journalism and Mass Communications commencement that was held on Thursday. It was a great ceremony.


Kevin Fagan from the San Francisco Chronicle was the speaker. He said that journalism is not dead or dying, but the business model we have been using is done.

So I have officially graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism. I am the first person in my extended family (on my Dad's side anyway) to get a bachelors degree, but my family has done a lot for me and prepared the way. I am really grateful for them.

One of a hundred

UWIRE released its list of the top 100 college journalists this morning, and I'm on it! A big thanks to those that nominated me and said such nice things. It's a huge honor to be on this list with some of the best people out there. I know a lot of other people that should be on the list. I am a little surprised that there do not seem to be a ton of online people on the list. Hopefully that will change in future years. Congrats to the other 99 people on the list.

Oh, and Howard, I was not on the SPJ list, but I bet you will have the same result with the UWIRE list. Students and schools are both to blame for not understanding the importance of building an online presence. Google me, I'll be there.

In other news, I have finished all of my finals and am officially done with college! The journalism school's convocation is tomorrow night and the official graduation is Saturday morning.

Advice for young journalists

Tomorrow is my last day as the editor of theSpartanDaily.com. I have very mixed emotions. I am excited to graduate and (hopefully) get a job, but at the same time, I am going to miss this place.

Anyway, I am putting together a list that I can give to the rest of the staff tomorrow. A sort of going-away present. All of the staff writers were required to do at least three multimedia projects over the course of the semester. Almost all of them had never done something online before, but all of them fulfilled their requirement, many did more. Most of them did at least one video and one Soundslides. Plus a mix of other things.

I was really surprised at how willing they all were to try this stuff out. When I was a staff writer last spring we did nothing for our Web site and almost all of the students in the school seemed hesitant to even try producing online content. All of the sudden, everyone is excited about trying new things, and they have been doing a pretty good job.

I want to give them a list of resources and suggestions that will help them to build on what they have learned this semester and hopefully get even more excited about online journalism. Here is what I have so far. What would you add?

Read:

Innovation in College Media
Invisible Inkling (Spartan Daily alum Ryan Sholin)
Kyle’s Comments (that’s me)
Photojournalism From A Student’s Eye (Daily alum Daniel Sato)
News Videographer
Romenesko
Teaching Online Journalism

Watch:
Common Craft

Join:
Wired Journalists
College Content Management
LinkedIn

Try:
Blogging! http://www.blogger.com/ or http://wordpress.com/
An RSS Reader
Twitter

Of course, there are a lot more blogs in my reader and a lot of other sites I visit, but I think these are the basic essentials. I also included some of the Daily alumni so they can see what is possible. What would you add to my list or tell young reporters to encourage them to become wired?

Covering the candidates live

I haven't had much time to post lately (or do much else online lately). Maybe it has something to do with my graduation in 15 days....

But the major project this week is the live coverage we are doing over at theSpartanDaily.com of the three candidates for the SJSU president job.

The finalists are on campus this week and we have been doing live blogs and live video of all of the public meetings and media conferences. You can see everything we are doing on the frequently-updated theSpartanDaily.com/president.

On top of that, we covered the current president's last media conference yesterday.

Happy RSS Awareness Day

Today is RSS Awareness Day. Check out the site here and if you don't know what RSS is, you need to watch the video. RSS has changed the way we use the Internet and I know I appreciate it.