News-minded baby Gators arriving at UF this Summer are in for a change.
Incoming Summer B students on the telecommunication news track will be the first class required to take Reporting, a notoriously difficult journalism course rumored to be one of the most failed and dropped classes at the university. They will also have to take its prerequisite class, Multimedia Writing.
After a motion to approve the changes followed by the unanimous approval by the University Curriculum Committee on Feb. 18, both classes are now mandatory.
David Ostroff, the chair of the Department of Telecommunication, said current students are still under the old catalog requirements.
“No one who is already in college right now will be affected by these changes, even if they were to transfer into UF from a different community college or university,” Ostroff said.
However, Ostroff said the class will be mandatory only for students who have passed the News Placement Test and been accepted into the telecommunication news track.
Journalism master lecturer Mike Foley said he believes this is a “step in the right direction” for the college.
He said Reporting teaches more than just newswriting and newsgathering; it instills critical thinking skills by forcing students to decide the essential aspects of a news story.
“I think we have had very successful telecom graduates who didn’t take it, but I think the world is changing,” he said. “There is more of a premium on being able to write, more premium on news judgment.”
Joshua Williams, a 20-year-old UF telecommunication news sophomore, said he’s glad he doesn’t have to take the class but sees how the course could benefit telecommunication news majors.
“I feel like if you’re on the news track and you don’t take that sort of stuff, all you’re learning is reading. You’re not learning the skills behind it,” he said.
[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 2/26/2014 under the headline “Telecom requirements change"]
