Newness At Newhouse: Why I Chose to Redesign My Comfort Zone

If you asked me why I chose to attend Newhouse for graduate school, my answer would be short and sweet: to do things I’ve never done before.

 

I started noticing the differences between my graduate and undergraduate experiences almost immediately after moving to Syracuse. For sure, the biggest shift was transitioning from a large house with six other family members, three cats and a huge lawn to a studio apartment in an unfamiliar urban environment.

 

I am from the Albany, New York area and went to Siena College for undergrad, which is located in an Albany suburb. Siena was 20 minutes away from my home, so I commuted every semester and never experienced dorm life. I was one of about 3,000 students there (a stark contrast with SU’s more than 22,000), and there was a distinct divide between Siena’s campus and the surrounding off-campus areas, unlike SU’s gradient onto Syracuse’s streets. 

 

As an undergrad, I spent hours reading and writing in literature and composition classes for my English major, completed field experiences in local schools for my educational studies minor and took courses in subjects outside those areas to fulfill my school’s core curriculum requirements. Those courses and my first ever customer service employment experience (which was off-campus) were the extent of my risk-taking, especially since I did not have the added stress of adjusting to dorm life or a new city. I gave it my all and got a great education, but I chose to play it safe.

 

When I told my parents I wanted to get my master’s degree in journalism from Newhouse, they were beyond supportive. My dad toured apartments in Syracuse with me after I’d received my acceptance and helped me choose the place where I would spend the next year of my life. On move-in day, my parents assisted with the unpacking process. It was a long and arduous first moving experience, and I remember sighing with fatigue when I remembered that I hadn’t yet assembled my new bathroom shelves. Lo and behold, my mom had already put them together and organized my bathroom supplies while I was setting up my kitchen. Thanks, Mom!

 

Once my parents left, the adjustment process began. I liked having my own space and being in charge of everything, but I also missed my family. Classes hadn’t started yet, and I was 100% responsible for organizing my own entertainment, preparing my own meals and keeping my living space clean. Before, my siblings and I would divide housekeeping duties and I would assist my mom with meal preparation, but now, it was all up to me. 

 

Lucky for me, my boyfriend and his family live in the Syracuse area and they were very welcoming and helpful. They were (and still are) my local support system, and my own family is always easily reachable by phone. I did find myself getting lonely on days when my boyfriend was at work and I really had nowhere to be since classes hadn’t started yet, so I filled my time with culinary experimentation. That’s become one of my favorite adulting activities.

I’d already started reaching my goal of doing things outside my comfort zone. I had moved to a new city and started living by myself for the first time ever, but the real challenges were still ahead in Newhouse Boot Camp.

 

In undergrad, I could complete all my assignments from the comfort of my room without talking to strangers. After all, the whole point was to consume literature and produce my own analysis of what I had read. Something I learned during Boot Camp is that, while related, composition and journalism are two distinct fields. Instead of searching databases for academic sources, I found myself venturing into the city of Syracuse and its surrounding communities in search of live sources for my news stories. Throughout the six-week session, I drove to Syracuse’s Westcott neighborhood, the Northside and nearby suburbs to interview real people whose testimonies would add depth and credibility to my articles.

 

For one memorable class assignment, our professors tasked us with traveling off campus and interviewing 10 people about one of three possible topics, collecting their contact information, recording and transcribing the interviews, and submitting those files for a grade by midnight. My classmates and I still reminisce about the awkwardness and anxiety that assignment evoked, but without a doubt, it was excellent practice. 

 

We also took graphic design, which was completely new to me, and I developed some working knowledge of Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver by summer’s end. Long story short, our 40 hours of class per week paid off.

 

I’ve started building even more skill sets during the fall semester, including audio and video production, SEO practices, magazine and news editing skills, and web analytics. The entire MNO cohort is also taking another reporting class and honing our reporting skills even more, which started with a surprise trip to the New York State Fair where we could report on whatever we wanted. Now that the uncertainty of the early adjustment period has settled, I am more confident than ever that stepping outside my comfort zone and coming to Newhouse was the right choice.