“I think I’ve had a very unique experience college experience compared to most students out there and I’m very happy about that,” said William Greenwood, Calf Care Manager of Cal Poly’s Dairy Calf unit.
The first project of our Senior Media Practicum class gave us the real unique Cow Poly experience. Our project focused on William Greenwood and his experience working as the Calf Care Manager for Cal Poly’s Dairy Calf Unit. The project’s goal was to focus on William and his different experience of Cal Poly; the project easily became a two-week adventure featuring a group of journalism students, a mystery man, and baby cows.
When generating the idea for our first project, the group went through a series of options from hotel establishment articles to the CAFES enterprise program. Ultimately, team member Alice Neary brought up the idea of a profile story on Calf Care Manager, William Greenwood. Alice met William on a run when she went to visit baby cows. With this, she was curious about his experience being a student and working in Cal Poly.
“I liked that you get to be outside and connect with nature. I was fascinated thinking about how vast our experiences differed,” said Alice Neary.
With this, the team proceeded to research and track down the elusive William Greenwood. It was at this time that the team had no idea who he was, what program he was in, or if it was even a program. (It wasn’t a program, it was an actual job.) With experts skills in Google and Facebook searches, the team found William Greenwood in the Cal Poly directory and contacted him through email and phone.
As interviews were set up and outlines created, each member had to rely on each other. New skills were learned, old skills were re-learned, and many baby cows were seen. Taylor Morhardt believed that this project helped improve her skills as a journalist.
“This project helped me organize my story structure better with the use of the story focus form and the story outline form. The outline form was the most useful to me because I could look back at what I put on the outline and was able to formulate my questions to my sources, based off the information I needed to write my story,” said Taylor Morhardt.
In the middle of the second week, rough drafts and edits were sent and software problems arose. Despite this, members of the team were able to meet with Brady and Brendan to gain tips and critiques for a better story. With the sudden help, members of the team were motivated and inspired. As Matt Medlin finished editing his video and moved to his infovideo, he became a bit more creative and inspired.
“I’m going to put jazz music with baby cows and it’s going to be like La La Land up in here,” said Matt Medlin.
Towards the end of the second week, each team member focused on their tasks to bring only the best content. Filled with late nights, crashing software, and hours of transcribing, this group was able to successfully complete the first project ending in a great MOOd.
