Attention students— It’s that time again to start registering for spring term classes!

If you are interested in writing, reporting, photography, videography, social media, or want to contribute to the Valencia Voice, the official student media newsgroup of Valencia College, these classes will be working directly with creating content for publication.

JOU1100 Introduction to News Reporting

Mondays 1:00-3:30 p.m

This course covers many news writing techniques and tricks such as interviewing, AP Style, inverted pyramid writing, lead writing and headline writing. Students will be required to write news stories for the Valencia Voice.

JOU1400 Media Production (formerly College Newspaper)

Tuesday/Thursday 10:00-11:15 a.m.

This course reinforces the writing skills from JOU1100, but focuses on broadcasting (video) skills such as pitching, shooting, script-writing, speaking on camera, writing, editing, and creating TV news packages similar to those in a traditional TV newsroom.

PUR2003 Introduction to Public Relations 

ONLINE & Face-to-Face (Thursday 5:30-8:00 p.m.)

This course covers public relations basics — what is it, history, career options, strategies, crisis communication, branding/imaging, writing and tools. Students may be asked to develop a portion of a public relations campaign for an on-campus client.

Students must be self-starters and organized to succeed in an online format.

MMC2100 Writing for Mass Media

ONLINE

This course covers writing for mass media and is split into halves. In the first half of the semester, students will learn the basics of news writing — interviewing, AP style, lead writing, etc. They must write a news story that could be published in the Valencia Voice.

The remaining part of the semester will touch on writing for the web, public relations, advertising, photography, ethics.

MMC2150 Writing for Social Media

 ONLINE

This course is an overview of writing for social media with an emphasis on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and some other tools. Students will look at how social media is used for marketing and branding. Students may be asked to work on a client and learn what it is like to run a social media campaign.

JOU2200 – Editing and Design

 MW 5:30-6:45pm 

This course will study the application of copydesk techniques including evaluation of copy editing; correction of faulty news stories, headline writing, page layout design and work with wire copy. Students will work with Valencia Voice content to accomplish these tasks.

A student from Introduction to News Reporting, Abby Prickett, gives a great deal of insight with her experience she has gained from the class and the perks of it allowing her to act as a contributing writer to Valencia Voice.

“Being apart of the news reporting class has opened my eyes to the reality of what today’s journalism looks like and requires”, said Prickett.

She goes on to tell how the class also gives her a chance to build a professional portfolio along with first hand skills that she will need in her later years such as covering stories through social media.

On the other hand, a Valencia Voice writer, Evonna Cooper, provides her take away from being involved with Valencia Voice. She claims it to be a helpful tool for her since she has a desire to pursue a career in journalism as well.

“It has helped me with my AP style writing and putting me in actual situations that I’m going to need in real life for the career I want to do,” said Cooper.

Overall, students agree that it is worth signing up for these classes. It hooks them right up to being able to contribute to Valencia Voice.

Even if a student is not enrolled in one of these classes, they can still participate since it is a club. Meetings for Valencia Voice are held in Building One, room 152, every Monday from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. and every Thursday from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

The group is looking for anyone that has a knack for writing, reporting, blogging, design and photography.