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Multimedia Journalism – FULL

Learn how to report news stories with words, photos, graphics, audio, video and social media

Multimedia Journalism will introduce students to news reporting, interviewing and storytelling skills for print, broadcast and digital news outlets. Students will learn how to interview people, uncover news, separate fact from fiction, and engage a digital audience in a rapidly changing online environment. Veteran journalists who are experts in the fields of reporting, writing, audio, visuals, and audience engagement will lead students in training workshops to help them develop effective writing, research, and photography skills, and expose them to best practices for data visualizations and social media. Students also will visit a television news station to get a behind-the-scenes look into a daily newscast and meet UConn Journalism alumni working in the field. It will be an exciting introduction to nonfiction storytelling and the chance to learn techniques useful not only in the journalism field, but are must-haves in public relations, marketing and communications.

Students from diverse economic and racial backgrounds will learn about current events, the role of the news media, news judgement and journalism ethics. They will be introduced to nonfiction storytelling and give tools to sharpen their writing, research, and critical-thinking skills. Effective writing is the foundation of communication, and this course will help students communicate more effectively and clearly in their written work in the classroom and/or workplace. Journalism skills are necessary not only for reporters and editors but for those seeking to go into communications, public relations and marketing fields. Students will also gain experience using multimedia tools to gather and report news for publication on various platforms.

UConn Pre-College Summer: Multimedia Journalism

SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY: REACHED CAPACITY AND NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Through a generous donation from supporters of the non-profit Connecticut Health Investigative Team, the UConn Department of Journalism and UConn PCS will provide eligible students with a full scholarship which will enable students to participate in the Multimedia Journalism course at no cost. Please visit the Scholarships & External Funding page for details on eligibility and more.

Sessions Offered

Session 3: July 9 – July 15

Format

Residential, Non-Credit

Related Courses

Creative Writing

This class is meant to be immersive and students will experience:

  • What is news and how you can find it.
  • How a reporter can best present a nonfiction story.
  • Multimedia:
    • Photography: Tools and tricks for creating a well-composed photo
    • Audio and Video: Best practices & editing techniques
    • Data Visualization: How to turn numbers into an understandable graphic
    • Social media
  • Field trip to a television news station in the Hartford area
  • Ethics in a “citizen journalist” world

UConn Pre-College Summer: Multimedia Journalism

UConn Pre-College Summer: Multimedia Journalism

UConn Pre-College Summer: Multimedia Journalism

Meet the Professor


 

UConn Pre-College Summer: Julie Serkosky Multimedia Journalism FacultyJulie Serkosky is a reporter, editor and professor whose experience in the journalism field spans three decades. She specializes in political and community reporting and digital techniques and has taught UConn courses on ethics, journalism history, entrepreneurial journalism, editing, online journalism and business reporting.
https://journalism.uconn.edu/2019/09/06/spotlight-on-julie-serkosky-assistant-professor-in-residence/

Leadership Style and Skill Development – FULL

Effective leaders inspire, motivate, have great ideas, are creative problem solvers and support their team! Join us for a week designed to develop these skills to help you advance in school, in college, and beyond!

Leadership styles are reflective of your personality, your experience, and what goals you are trying to achieve. There are introverted and extroverted leaders. There are people who lead from the spotlight and those who conquer issues without seeking recognition . Together, we are going to discover the variety of leadership styles you are most suited for, develop your team work skills, share ideas, learn from each other, and have a great time.

At the end of this course you will be able to identify different leadership approaches and how each benefits a shared goal. You will be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a leader and how to best interact with others in group. Most of all, you are going to have an amazing time learning about yourself and others!

UConn Pre-College Summer: Leadership Course

Sessions Offered

Session 2: July 2 – July 8

Format

Residential, Non-Credit

Related Courses

See Course Offerings

This class is meant to be immersive and students will experience:

  • Group work and individual reflection
  • Low stakes public speaking and intrapersonal communication activities
  • Leadership simulations
  • Soft and hard skill development activities

UConn Pre-College Summer: Leadership Style and Skill Development

UConn Pre-College Summer: Leadership Course

UConn Pre-College Summer: Leadership Style and Skill Development

Meet the Professor


 

UConn Pre-College Summer: Leadership CourseLeo Lachut

Assistant Director of First Year Programs & Learning Communities

Director of Academic Support

Leo has worked in Higher Education for the past thirty years. Currently, Leo currently serves as the Director of the Academic Support and Assistant Director of First Year Programs and Learning Communities. Previously Leo has worked at UConn as a counselor with UConn’s TRiO program. For the past ten years Leo has served as an instructor in Educational Psychology for a fieldwork class for student mentors. As a member of UConn’s University Senate, Leo chairs the student welfare committee addressing the needs of the undergraduate population. Before coming to UCONN, Leo worked in many areas of counseling from working as a counselor and advisor at Manchester Community College, counseling six graders in the East Hartford school system to adult males involved with domestic violence issues.

On campus Leo serves on many committees surrounding student retention and success. Leo holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from UCONN, a master’s degree in counseling from Saint Joseph University and holds national certification and licensure as a LPCA.

Pre-Law – FULL

Experience the Law in Action

Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated that “the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” In accordance with this observation, our Pre-Law course provides high school students with both academic and practical understandings of the law, legal education, and operations of the American criminal and civil justice systems as well as appellate processes. This course may be of particular interest to aspiring legal professionals as well as to those who have a curious interest in current legal issues.

Students leave this course prepared to enter a pre-law program at the college level with a more comprehensive understanding of legal theory, constitutional rights, as well as formal and informal systems for resolving disputes in the United States. Participation in simulations throughout the week bolster public-speaking skills. Engaging conversations centering on current legal issues feed each participant's intellectual curiosity.

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Sessions Offered

Session 5: July 23 - July 29

 

Format

Residential, Non-Credit

Related Courses

TBD

This class is meant to be immersive and students will:

  • Study theories of the law and the U.S. Constitution
  • Experience legal education by being a law student for a day during our visit to the UConn School of Law
  • Observe the American criminal justice system in action by visiting a local courthouse and meeting with real-life judges and prosecutors
  • Assess current issues relating to the civil justice justice system, particularly in relation to environmental litigation
  • Participate in the appellate process by way of a Moot Court simulation based on a highlighted case in constitutional law

Image of Law Class

Image of student reading

Image of students writing on board

Meet the Professor


 

Dr. Kimberly R. Bergendahl is an Associate Professor in Residence in the Department of Political Science and also serves as its Internship Coordinator and advisor to Crime and Justice minors. A recipient of the 2018 Honors Faculty Member of the year award, Dr. Bergendahl teaches courses in the fields of Public Law, American Politics, and Political Theory. She has been teaching the Pre-Law course in the Pre-College Summer Program since 2017. She also served as the coach and advisor for the UCONN Moot Court Competition Team. Dr. Bergendahl received her B.A. from Southeastern Massachusetts University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. Her current research interests include the Senate Judiciary Committee's review of Supreme Court nominations throughout history, local and state regulations on environmental toxins, the influence that popular culture has on the law, and Political Science education and civic engagement.

Dr. Bergendahl has been active in local politics, including her previous service as a Justice of the Peace and on the Planning and Zoning Commission in the Town of Pomfret. A native of Rhode Island, she now resides in Pomfret Center, Connecticut with her husband, John, an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. They have two children, Thomas and Meredith, as well as a Beagle named “Marcie.”

Read more about Dr. Bergendahl in UConn Today

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Creative Writing

Learn to write with voice, choice, and creativity!

Students (and educators) too often regard the essay as merely an instrument of assessing learning, but the essay has a rich history as a creative genre.  In this course we will approach the essay as the creative, dynamic, imaginative literary form that it actually is.  Your approach to writing essays will not be the same and you'll never go back to the five paragraph essay again!

You will leave this course with a very different and improved understanding of the essay, and you will be better writers. The essays you write in the future may challenge some of your teachers’ more conventional expectations, but they will be better, more interesting, and more like the real writing professional essayists actually create. Your professors in college will be grateful.

Sessions Offered

Session 5: July 23 - July 29

Format

Residential, Non-Credit

This class is meant to be immersive and students will experience:

  • Students will become better writers, more independent, more creative, and more original.
  • Students will choose topics of interest, explore genres of writing, develop their own voice, and write!
  • Learn a little bit about the history of the essay as a literary genre.
  • Read a variety of essays form a variety of essayists.
  • Experiment with writing different kinds of essays, such as personal essays, op-eds, commentaries, and rants.
  • Share writing with one another both for revision and entertainment.
  • Play around with some multimodal forms of composition.

Image of students

Image of student

Image of students

Meet the Professor


 

Dr. Jason Courtmanche (Associate Professor in Residence; Director of Connecticut Writing Project) is a former high school English teacher who became an English college professor. He works primarily with undergraduates who want to be high school English teachers but also works with high school English teachers who teach the UConn Early College Experience course. If you are a student in Connecticut, there is a good chance that Jason taught one or more of your English teachers. He has won several teaching awards and has published academic essays, personal essay, poetry, and the rare work of fiction. He runs the Connecticut Student Writers contest, Letters About Literature, and the Scholastic Writing Awards. If you want to know more about what he does, check out his blog, The Write Space.

Connecticut Writing Project
UConn Early College Experience English course

Professor Jason Courtmanche