The end of an elective

And the Shades of Green environmental justice festival just ended (albeit on a note I have always found bizarre: what do randomly sung hip-hop and rock songs at the close of a celebration have anything to do with the theme of the celebration? If the idea was to have a good time and learn something, why not close on a note that will let the message sink in instead of going on about "shaking" certain body parts? I digress.)

Truth be told, I did not learn what I'd come to learn. The entire environmental issues elective was all about participation - which I do appreciate - but as for writing about environmental issues as a journalist, I acquired none of the skills I think will be necessary: the important questions, the ways in which stories are retold and the ways in which the real content can be lost in a miasma of irrelevant information, the how of writing short- and long-stories, and the history of environment journalism. The only great thing that I took away from it was that now, I know what I'm up against, I know what all the important issues, and I know what to and what not to play up and how to attack whom from where.

Isn't there a contradiction in there somewhere? I suppose there is. I think I'm surprised at the way things have turned out considering his methods, come to think of it, weren't all that direct.

The reason I took up the elective has been the same all this time: I want to be a science journalist and am quite happy with what I'm doing and the skills am choosing to acquire (apart from acquiring many others anyway) to get there, and the environment is a significant part of science. All of science's deployment is interrelated with environmental issues. Perhaps it was the professor's belief that with a sound practical and policy-level knowledge of the subject, journalists can acquire the requisite writing skills on their own.

Let's see.