The great city of New Orleans

           Watching out the plane window as the city came into view was a great feeling. It has always been a dream of mine to travel to the other side of the country. Now here I am, sitting on a hotel floor in Louisiana.

           The nightlife in this great city of New Orleans is a blast. It’s full of city lights, swimming in a cold pool, acting like tourists as we walk around the city streets. Despite the amount of fun this city brings, the real reason we’re here is for the journalism conferences. It’s where we learn things we never would have thought about, and we hear the things our advisors have been drilling into our heads since day one. The nightlife is full of memories we’ll never forget while the conference is full of knowledge we’ll forever use.

             I’ve been to a professional conference before. It was a conference about how to run a farm that I was dragged to as a kid. I found it incredibly boring and useless. But here at NOLA ’13 I have learned even more things about writing, editing and useful tips that can help me land a career path that I can stick with for the rest of my life. I can bring things I learned back to The CHIMES and put it to use in not only my writing but also in my staff’s writing.

            My favorite panel I attended during this conference was called “Starting a Career in Broadcasting with speaker Kelvin Davis, CNN Sales and Affiliate Relations.” I’m not incredibly interested in broadcasting but this panel pretty much turned out to be Mr. Davis speaking about how to take a successful interview and fill out a successful resume. I found the information he gave to be very useful towards my future and how I can find myself greater and better opportunities.

            Overall the trip has been great, I could not imagine being here with a better group of people, plus the people we’ve met here. The weather here is perfect, and tomorrow morning when I sit on the plane I will look back out the window towards the city and think about the memories I’ve gained and the lessons I’ve learned from New Orleans.

Christian James Haight, ’16 Associate Lifestyle Editor