Something investigative this way comes

I am a Stony Brook J-school student and this winter I decided to start a photoblog of my experiences being thrown and battle-tested in the real world (that is NYC, I hope). So instead of driving down to Florida (or Cancun, bleh) to have a few Margaritas in the sun-baked beaches, a couple of fanatically dedicated J-school students have decided to brave the nasty cold weather and push ourselves to the limit. Yes, we love this job that much.

This is a 3 week intensive at the Manhattan campus of Stony Brook, and the odd thing is that our classroom is empty most of the time (to the dismay of curious students). We are taught by two veteran journalists, Barbara Selvin, of Newsday fame, and Steve Reiner, of CBS. Our assignment is to lug our Sony HDV cameras and Manfrotto tripods (a good 20-30 pounds of equipment) and to shoot a network-quality broadcast story using our journalism training and people-flattering skills. We have one week deadlines, which is a bit more lax than network deadlines, some of which give you 6 hours from shooting those phone calls out to handing in a completed package.

It's a lot of hard work, but I can't think of being anywhere else this winter. My feet hurt, and after the second day of being at soup kitchens, my two partners and I was ready to collapse.

There will also be visits to places like CBS headquarters and numerous newsrooms in and around NYC, I have my digital camera on me at all times to make a photojournal of all the interesting places we visit and some of the people we talk to.

It'll be continually updated by date and each day of reporting in the city, challenges, interactions, hardships, and lessons to be learned by all. I started my university career not knowing what I want to do and being very introverted, somehow by chance two years later, I am a journalism student reporting in the city almost everyday and talking to strangers for a living. If all that can happen, I wonder what's next?

I'm excited, we begin.