Simone Marie Martelle

I wrote this story for my RW1 class and it was published on our class website, The Midtown Gazette.

Playwrights’ Week Returns to the Lark for its Nineteenth Year

BY Simone M. Scully

On August 2nd, orientation started for the Journalism School and I got the chance to meet my new classmates.

Then, on Monday, classes officially started… or at least what they call ‘boot camp’ started.  We don’t start all of our classes.  Instead, we have an introduction to Audio and Photo skills, so that we all know how to use equipment and get an understanding of some basic principles of Journalism.  So far, I have had two classes in Audio.  My first reporting assignment was to put together an Audio Profile.  I interviewed actor Joey Slotnick for the project and you can listen to my 2 minute Radio profile below:

Next, we were tasked with putting together a 2 minute audio postcard.  I chose to do one of the Central Park Zoo.  You can listen to the piece below:

On Friday, we will be starting Photo skills classes.

In addition to these basic skills classes we take in August, we start Reporting and Writing 1 (RW1), which is a reporting class where we are broken up into small groups and assigned a beat to cover this whole semester.  My professor is Karen Stabiner, an adjunct professor.  You can read about on the Journalism School’s website.  My beat is Midtown West, so I will be covering the area from Lincoln Center to 14th Street and 5th Avenue to the Hudson River.  This includes the Garment District, the Diamond District, the Theater District, Times Square, Korea Town, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen.  Although some of my classmates in other RW1 groups are covering areas like the Bronx or Brooklyn, I am very excited that I got a Manhattan beat, especially since this will allow me to still write about theater.

So far, my first week at the Journalism School has been challenging, but I am glad  to be here.  I have met some incredibly talented people and I absolutely love hearing and reading their work.

That is all I have to report so far, but I will be sure to keep you updated of my progress at the J-School.  You can also keep up with my journalism work by following my other blog – http://the-outside-observer.com – where I will be posting some of my written work.

I just found out that I have been accepted into Columbia University’s School of Journalism’s Centennial class!    While I do still need to wait to hear back about financial aid, I am very excited about being admitted.  I absolutely love Columbia University and New York city, so the idea of staying here is very appealing.

Columbia’s curriculum is very exciting and I know of quite a few classes that I really look forward to taking there.

More info to come soon!

I just found out that I have been accepted into the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University!  So exciting!  Of course, I still have to wait to hear back from a few more places and to find out about financial aid, but that is all stuff I will think about later.  Right now I am just excited!

In particular, I am really excited about their Magazine concentration and their Global Residency Program.  I think that it will be an excellent place for me to improve my skills as a journalist.  Find out about the program by visiting their website.

More details coming soon!

Although I am still re-writing and tweaking my thesis play, the time has come to cast it.  Auditions started the end of January and final callbacks are Tuesday the 7th of February.  I will then have a cast to announce.

In the meantime, check out the new Damaged website.  You can follow us throughout the rehearsal process there.