I Accidentally Joined A Sorority

Actually it's a mixture of a sorority and fraternity and I haven't actually joined. However, over the last couple of years I have been pledging.

The pledging started the day I decided I wanted to major in journalism. Unlike joining an organization, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. All I knew was I was depending on my professors to lead me down the right path. It felt kind of like this trust game that most people play when they are getting into organizations. In the game one person gets blindfolded and another person (or multiple people) try to lead that person down a path.


The next part of my hazing, oops I mean pledging, consisted of lots of writing. Writing was expected since I was a journalism student, but some professors found ways to really test my (and others) knowledge. This testing was done by making me remember a month (or more) of news material and at least 10 chapters in a book for a test. Then the test would be 10 essay questions on only God knows what. As hard as I tried, I was never prepared for those tests. My memory wasn't that good. My memory is better now, but it's still not that good.

Along with essay-tests came lots of newspaper writing. While I was supposed to be getting experience writing in newspapers, that is not what I'm referring to. There was lots of newspaper writing inside of classes. Sometimes I was given general assignments to write stories on, but other times I had to interview my classmates. I learned from these experiences that it's easier to ask questions than it is to answer them.

After these lovely experiences I felt confident in my ability to survive this journalism program. Well, most of my confidence came from watching people around me change their majors or drop out of school from frustration. However, the pledging was not over yet.


Since I had chosen to be a broadcast student it was time to get accustomed to the life of a broadcast journalist. There were some very bad experiences starting out. Some consisted of horrible stand-up locations, terrible editing, and moments of feeling really cold in the editing booth. Yes, the picture above is me.

Soon I did figure out how to write and put together good news packages. I also made a documentary (with the help of a partner). Now I'm, my last semester, I'm getting the experience of working on a live newscast that airs every Monday through Thursday. While making it to the live newscast is a great accomplishment, it's still a part of my pledging.

However, in a couple of weeks I will be experiencing the probate. My probate (also called Capstone) will consist of three professors, whom I've had as teachers, judging a portfolio of work that I've done throughout my years at this school. When organizations have probates it means you've made it into that organization. This one, on the other hand, will determine if I'm ready for the real world or not.


I know I'm ready. I just have to prove it to those professors. Then once I'm done I will receive my degree. It's not an acceptance of life-long sisterhood, but it does look good on a job application.