For 15 Penn State students in the College of Communications, spring break this year does not mean an uneventful return home, a responsibility-free trip to a warm beach or even a break from class.
They're working as part of COMM 497B International Reporting, with a weeklong trip to China. Daily blogs and updates from their trip may be found online at http://centrecountyreport.com/detail/214.html, and they're reporting for other in-depth assignments that will be published at the end of the semester.
More than 60 students applied for the hands-on class and the 15 standouts selected represent a cross section of journalism majors: broadcast, print, multimedia and visual communications. Students spent the first part of the semester leading up to spring break preparing for the trip by honing story ideas and conducting what research they could without being on site.
Once they arrived in China, after completing a 7,300-mile trip to Shanghai that required 14 hours on planes, they were ready to get started.
"My message, and what I will continually tell them, is that a so-so story is better than a great excuse for not having one," said Foster Professor Anthony Barbieri, who teaches the class with assistant professor Bu Zhong. "If we're trying to give them a sense of what an international correspondent does, they have to get the story."
Last year, Barbieri, a former international correspondent himself, led an international reporting class on an inaugural trip to Mexico City. After Zhong and Dean Doug Anderson made a 12-day trip in 2008 to China, the location for this year’s trip was logical. Because of Zhong's familiarity with the country and Penn State relationships with Shanghai International Studies University, faculty members focused on the distinctive city of Shanghai.
"It just has his mystique," Barbieri said. "It's the country’s financial capital, it's stunning visually and it might be the most outward-looking city in the country except for Hong Kong. It just struck me as the coolest place to go. It was a no-contest choice."
It will not be the group's only stop, though. After a week of work in Shanghai, Barbieri plans to take the group to Beijing before they return home.
"It just pained me to think about taking them all the way over there and not providing the opportunity to see the Great Wall," he said.
Along with Barbieri, Zhong and the students, the traveling contingent includes: Yuan Sun, a graduate student who previously lived in Shanghai and worked for The New York Times there; Ford Risley, associate professor and head of the Department of Journalism; and Barbara Bird, associate professor and director of international programs for the College of Communications.