Writing about the border for the Borderbeat website is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences that the University of Arizona's journalism program has to offer.
Upon arriving for the first day of class the workload looks daunting, but after a few weeks students seem to find their groove and the quality of writing definitely improves.
The first question I get asked when someone hears that I am in border beat is: "How often do you have to goto the border?" The answer is as much or as little as you would like. Writing about border issues doesn't mean that you have to make constant trips to Mexico or Nogales.
In my opinion, the most challenging part of the course is writing good, insightful and on topic blogs about health issues along the border; not because there aren't a lot of news worthy topics, but because you concentrate on your stories throughout the week and when the weekend comes sometimes you scrape together sources and end up with nothing except a blank screen on blogger and a few quotes.
In order to do good blogs a student should work throughout the week on their story and take their time writing it. Also, make sure you take reporting public affairs a different semester than your senior capstone. It is extremely hard to work on three, sometimes four stories in one week. Sources start becoming mixed up and stories seem to mesh together and, of course, the quality of writing suffers.
The professor of borderbeat, Jay Rochlin, does a great job teaching the course and isn't afraid to tell you when the work is good or bad. The website design is easy to navigate and the story list functions make sifting through the stories easy for editors. My favorite part of the course was the All Souls Procession special report. Writing about something that interesting and taking probably the best pictures I have ever shot was a rewarding experience.
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