Newhouse Insider: Back to Zoom

After two months of having no school, no assignments and having the Netflix opening “ba-dum” ingrained in my head to the point where it was waking me up in the middle of the night, it is very exciting to have the spring semester up and running.

I felt very accomplished over break. I finished the entirety of Breaking Bad, gained about 10 pounds from a diet consisting of Christmas cookies for breakfast and lasagna for lunch and dinner, and developed a healthy sleep schedule of going to bed after midnight and waking up after 10 A.M.

In reality, the past two months have been an excellent opportunity to take advantage of making connections on LinkedIn and growing my own personal network. I have spent time doing some freelance work for some local publications in my home state of New York. This was very rewarding, as it gave me a chance to put into practice what I have been taught at Newhouse over the summer and fall. To see those skills and techniques be picked up by editors made me very encouraged for the upcoming semester.

While I would say that I am excited to get back to campus, I will not be returning to campus this semester and will be taking all my classes remotely. I knew it was possible to get my education remotely, as the past two semesters have taught me, but I was a little worried about missing out on all the opportunities that Syracuse has to offer.

Luckily, I have been able to reprise my roles for the upcoming semester and feel very fortunate to do so. That being said, I will be continuing my blog on all things virtual and how proceeding remotely can bring a different perspective as well as a different set of opportunities.

If anything, watching the NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL complete their seasons in a pandemic should prove to society that we can always get done whatever we need to get done however we need to do it. It can be done in a virtual setting — reporters talk to athletes via Zoom or virtual conferences; we’ve seen fans attend games virtually, and I believe that could be a trend that continues even after the pandemic is over.

It makes sense to me that journalists would continue a virtual trend of recording interviews out of the pure convenience of the matter. Having a Zoom call can allow a journalist to record an interview with anyone in the world. This also would make the interview subject more apt to do the interview because they can do so out of the comfort of their own home.

I also find it entertaining to watch clips of Zoom interviews that are posted because it is something that we all can connect with. I believe that it also gives the interview a much more casual feel and therefore more personality can come from it.

I am excited to start this semester and hopefully see our country come out of this pandemic. It will be very interesting to see how the communications industry changes after the COVID-19 case numbers begin to drop. I can not help but wonder — what will change and what will stay the same?