USF Journalism Panel

USF Media Studies Alums Stress the Importance of Self

For some of the alumni of the University of San Francisco Media Studies department, breaking into the journalism world has been a struggle. A number of these alums were back at USF on October 16th to talk about their experiences for the first annual Journalism Alumni Panel.
Toan Lam, a broadcast journalist who is currently working for KRON, stressed the important of building yourself when preparing to enter the journalism field. When asked if he thought that students were compromised by the lack of a journalism major at USF, Lam disagreed. Rather he said that USF is a good school for learning the theories of journalism and the lack of a structured major challengers the student to be more independent.
Lam, who originally wanted to be in print journalism rather than broadcast, had five internships during the four years he spent at USF. When the opportunity to work for the broadcast side appeared, Lam was well prepared from his time at USF.
Panel members and also USF alumni included: Vicky Nguyen, another broadcast journalist from Channel 11 (NBC), Myra Sandova who is a copywriter for the Gap, Tiffany Maleshefsky, a technical writer for eWeek, and Kent German, a cell-phone reviewer from CNET, among others.
The audience included undergraduates in the Media Studies department, who seemed to be overwhelmed by the struggles that some of panelists had experienced on their road to success. There were also several faculty members and alumni in attendance.