Coming into the 694 class I had one goal to accomplish: I wanted to learn about convergence. I succeeded. Now that I know what I know, I'm ready to be a journalist in a cross-platform environment, or at least think I'm ready. Until I graduate in another year, I'll be watching the curriculum in the School of Journalism and listening to the professors carefully, not just for my sake, but for theirs.
There are too many brillant people -- students, staff and faculty alike -- in this school who, unlike me, have not been hit on the head with the apple of the Information Age. Not that I'm a genius when it come to computers, but these folks make me look like Einstein. People are downright scared of technology. Scared of pushing a button or playing around with a software program. Scared and reluctant because a voice in their head is saying you might fail or mess something up.
I believe in the law of diminishing returns for both successes and failures. You can only fail so many times before the fear of failing doesn't bother you anymore. Likewise, you can only succeed at something so many times before you can't feel the jubilation.
There came a time in this semester that I stopped saying, "I did code by myself!" It was no big deal; it came naturally. I had to jump bigger hurdles to get that feeling of astonishment and pride. Those feelings came again when I turned Susie Cable's in-depth content into an interesting Web page. Then, it was on to information architecture for the KUJH-TV Web site.
I'm ready for convergence in the real world and feel that I'm far more knowledgable on the subject than many students like me. Taking 694 gave me confidence in my ability as a Web journalist. It has also given me enough ego to tell people when their perceptions, inhibitions and knowledge base needs to change in order for convergence to work here.
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