Art by Peau Porotesano
Pepperdine students are encouraged often to find ways to give back and serve their community. Working at Pepperdine Graphic Media is a form of service that comes with more than a few perks.
PGM offers a variety of jobs and experiences. Students not only create articles and opinion pieces like this for the weekly paper, but they coordinate online content, produce weekly GNews videos, and work on the semester-long effort, Currents Magazine, to capture campus life and Malibu life as it happens.
The opportunities to cover breaking news or events on campus allow PGM members to “be in the know.” They provide a service to keep the community, informing them of the most recent mountain lion sighting or shifts in the administration. They have the ability to tell important and impactful stories about and for the community.
Staff members interact with the many organizations available on campus by reaching out to cover the various stories that happen. PGM members interact not only with other students and organizations, but they also get to know and interact with administration.
From attending events or meeting with administrators to pitching stories at the weekly budget meeting, PGM staff members develop skills essential to any future career. Presentation and preparation come in handy for job interviews, research projects and selling pitches.
The work environment at PGM provides the perfect answers to typical interview questions like, “Describe a time you had a conflict with a colleague and how you dealt with it,” or “Have you ever had to work under deadline?” or even “Describe a time where you had to be resourceful.”
This work environment is as much a learning lab as it is a real workplace. Conflicts with colleagues can come up when trying to design pages or coordinating reporters to cover events, for example. But, from there, students learn how to prioritize the heavy tasks that come with producing the weekly paper, magazine, GNews videos and online content. The experiences at PGM serve as great resume builders as well as the beginnings of a portfolio for future employers.
Juggling the responsibilities of being a member on staff may seem difficult. However, working with a staff smaller than most at large schools, PGM staff members have more opportunities to get “hands-on” experience. The smaller staff also opens opportunities for underclassmen to get involved early and maybe even take editorial positions.
The editorial positions come with many responsibilities, but scholarship money is a worthwhile perk. PGM staff members can receive scholarship money to assist with tuition while contributing regularly to the efforts at PGM.
It’s never too late to get involved. Pepperdine Graphic Media offers many different levels of involvement from photography to writing to designing to producing. Involvement in PGM allows students to explore different forms of art and creativity. Being a writer or photographer on staff enables students to contribute as much or as little as they would like. Joining the PGM staff has led students to experience new things, learn new passions, and, if anything, make some more friends in college.
For those wanting a serious journalistic experience, a good portion of the PGM staff goes to the Associated College Press Convention (ACP) every year. The convention consists of workshops, sessions, media tours and an award ceremony. The ACP Pacemaker awards are known as Pulitzer Prize of college journalism. At ACP, PGM staff competes, presents and soaks up all the work done by student journalists around the country. We have won numerous awards for our photography, our magazine, our website, multimedia content and so much more. PGM is even in the ACP Pacemaker Award Hall of Fame. Not only is ACP great for networking, idea gathering, exploring an exciting city such as Austin or Washington, D.C., and team bonding, but it’s also an experience that leaves many of our staff energized and inspired to do good work back at Pepperdine.
For every professional experience at PGM, there’s an equally satisfying feeling of belonging by being part of this community. PGM is a community that makes mistakes but provides encouragement to do better. The upward mobility opportunity comes from the varying levels of mentorship built into PGM.
The people at PGM come from diverse majors, and PGM is not just for journalism majors. Students from all disciplines come together to form the teams of writers, artists, designers and editors.
Also, there’s always snacks in the newsroom and the couches are infamously comfortable, so those are some huge perks.
Applications for the fall semester will be available online this week. If you feel inclined to join a group of dedicated and hard working people, apply for a position to expand your capabilities and explore a new career field.
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Follow the Pepperdine Graphic on Twitter: @PeppGraphic
