JMC 327 has been one of my favorite college courses, and I’m not just saying that.  It has taught me about programs, ideas and terms that are applicable for the real world; things that I will use on a daily basis for the rest of my life.  We learned terms that I’ve never heard of before, developed a social media plan, blogged, tweeted, learned about Klout scores, Socioclean, LinkedIn, Foursquare, metrics and many other social media ideas.  Before this semester began I had never known about most of the things that we discussed in class.  I had a Twitter and a LinkedIn profile, but I never knew how to use them or how important it was to use them on a regular basis.  When looking for a job people actually care about how you use social media.  Lately I have been searching for jobs, a daunting task to say the least.  Some of the companies that I have interviewed with have asked me about my LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts.  I have also had a company ask me about my Klout score.  If I hadn’t taken this class I would not have been as prepared as I am till this day.


I’m really excited to say that I learned a lot!  In most classes that are offered in college you learn, but I’ve never had a class where I was able to gain this much knowledge.  By using Twitter, I have been able to follow a wide variety of individuals to learn about current events of all kinds.  I was able to create a social media policy, content strategy and plan.  I have been able to learn about social sites that I have never heard of including: Digg, Reddit, Tumblr, Posterous, Qik, Ustream, Slideshare, Twazzup, Instagram, AllTop, Klout, Delicious, Alexa, Listorious, Quora, Google Place, Quarkbase and Google Alert.  I recently used my new Storify account to create an amazing presentation about Internet memes for my English class.  My professor was astounded and had never even heard of Storified before.  This semester I have been able to start using my Twitter.  I have started to follow about 250 people and gained 120 followers.  I have been able to navigate LinkedIn skillfully and have reconnected with many people who I have met in my internships and professional life experiences.  I started the semester without having a Klout score and currently have a Klout score of 31.  That’s quite a lot to accomplish in one semester.  I believe the most valuable thing that I have learned is how to constantly search out different forms of social media.  Social media is in its youth.  It will be very exciting to see how it grows in the following years.

My advice for my journalism friends and colleagues is to try social media!  If you don’t try it, then you will never know about and how it could change your life.  It’s a great idea to explore the social media world and learn about the different types of networks and presentation forms.  If you don’t explore the social media world, then you will inevitably fall behind.  The world is moving at a fast-pace and the only way to stay updated is by joining the social media expansion.