FOR most of the students my age, hearing the words "get one whole sheet of paper and write an article" is like a nightmare. Many would start complaining to the teacher up front and even hate the subject all because of a piece of blank paper and pen.
I always had trouble expressing what I feel and think through writing. I was so conscious of my grammar such that writing one sentence would take me forever to finish. At the end of every class, I would rarely finish half of the page as a consequence. This was exactly my life before I went in the Journalism program.
Basically, what the subject taught me is the greater value of content over grammar. Yes, grammar is very important but this doesn't form the entirety of writing. It is the idea written in that blank paper that counts the most.
That personal idea, as what I learned in this subject, is mine and no one can take it away from me. Ergo, I must not be afraid to let it flow in every article that I make. This I believe is the biggest lesson that I learned in Journalism - that is having confidence in my ideas.
I believe that this is what most of the college students lack nowadays that's why they fear writing so much. It must be taught to all that writing is not just all about grammar and its difficult rules, rather, it is about how you can make your simple idea into a very interesting subject that would be worthy of the time of the readers.
I've been hearing a lot of students asking, "Is it okay if I write this? How about this?" I began to ask myself, is it really the lack of knowledge about a certain subject that makes them doubt their writing or is it because they do not have confidence in their own thoughts?
I was able to answer this when I stopped asking and started writing. I began to open up my thoughts without any fears of it getting criticized. This may be more of a personal than a scholastic learning but it definitely became my first step in the world of journalism.
After being able to understand this concept of 'writing,' creating articles became a breeze especially when I learned in class the different formats of writing for news and features. Of course, facts are very important, too. Writing with facts (validated, of course) is the journalistic way.
Writing, since then, didn't become a pain but rather a joy to me. Every time my alma mater asks me to do a press release for them, I am able to do so, easily. Writing also became a channel for me to help other people get simple joys especially to young grade school students by publishing their names on the newspaper.
I learned that writing is more than writing. It is something that can change other people's lives as well as my own. With that thought in mind, I can definitely say that it's not really difficult to write.