Mass Comm Major “Goes Pro”

No job in the Mass Communications field is easy to get, but one of the most fiercely competitive career paths in the field is that of the broadcast sports journalist. Thousands of graduates across the nation will vie for a handful of jobs, most in very small markets for very little pay. Getting a resume tape that stands out in that competition can mean a real leg up. Undergraduate Derek Parris has a piece for his reel that might just do that.

The senior Mass Comm major interviewed starting Rams linebacker Larry Grant for a sport news story as part of a class project.

“The advantage to Derek in being able to interview a professional football player at this charity event means that he will have a professional quality portfolio that could leapfrog him over his student competitors so that when he graduates he could go to a bigger market and make more money and perhaps skip that part of his career when he’d normally be making minimum wage” said Riley Maynard, mass communications professor.

Maynard found out about a charity event being held at Milo’s, an Edwardsville tobacco shop, that will benefit an area food bank. An alumnus of his program was putting together the event and called Maynard who turned it into a class project.

“I offered the project to one of my classes and three guys initially said they wanted it. I told them what they had to do, but Derrick was the only one who stepped up,” said Maynard. “He selected himself for the project. That’s the way it works.”

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