Through both my internship and my involvement with The Griffin, Canisius’ student-run newspaper, I’ve had the opportunity to attend a couple of really cool networking events this semester. The one I will write about here is the ACP Midwinter Nation College Journalism Conference, which I attended as a junior staff member of The Griffin.

I had the opportunity to travel to Long Beach, California, which was cool in and of itself, since it was my first time on the west coast. I know I would have found the conference just as beneficial even if it wasn’t in California, though. It was a great opportunity to interact with other college journalists from across the country. We all attended workshops taught by professionals in our field to learn new things about our craft. Through the discussions these workshops facilitated, we all also had the opportunity to talk to each other and learn about how other schools run their newspapers in order to pick up techniques for our own.

The conference put us in touch with professionals in our field, as well as representatives from potential grad schools. I know everyone on our staff left the conference with useful information, both for their personal career pursuits, as well as plenty of ideas for how to make The Griffin even better. The conference excited us, and renewed our dedication to our role as college journalists, and our career goals of professional journalists and professionals in the Communications field. It was extremely beneficial, and an amazing opportunity.