Blogs are a great way for modern communications majors to get their voices heard! That’s because making your mark in today’s fast-paced communications industry takes more than just the right training. It takes initiative, determination, and that sense of curiosity that great journalists are known for.
By considering taking communications abroad at a school like John Cabot University (JCU), you’ve proven you have the inquisitive nature of a great communications student. By studying communications abroad, you can hone this asset in preparation for a range of careers in journalism, reporting, public relations, marketing, and more. And according to experts and students alike, blogging while you study can enhance your experience in several key ways.
A Blog Showcases Your Strengths, Enhancing Your Resume While You Study in Italy
These days, launching your own blog can be a quick, free, and easy endeavor, with great potential for career payoffs. Get yourself a free WordPress or Weebly blogging account, and start by writing about what interests you most.
Will it be a travel blog? A current events blog? A blog about becoming a student in a colorful foreign city? Choose an issue or niche that you can speak about with honesty and insight, download a free blog template theme, and get writing as soon as you can!
“My advice? Do journalism now,” says Leeds Beckett communications expert Karl Hodge. “Get a blog. Chase stories. Don't do minimum to get by. Do more.”
Hodge believes that staking your claim in the industry with your own blog is the best way for a communications career hopeful to prepare for real-world work and impress potential employers. Blogging throughout your time in school can help you advertise your strengths, build your online following and presence, and grow your network of professional contacts. A great blog will show employers and industry leaders that you have real experience creating online content for an audience, and will expand your portfolio in the process.
A Blog Enriches Your Education When You Study Communications in Italy
In a recent study published by MIT, researchers determined through scientific data that students better retain information when they connect it to their own life experiences and interact with it firsthand.
A blog can allow you to put your lessons into practice when you study abroad in Italy, helping you to master them and remember them much more effectively. You’ll find yourself practicing your new knowledge in critical analysis, advanced writing for communications, and digital media with each blog post you write.
In the words of a student blogger herself, American communications major Paige Brown Jarreau:
“The research suggests that students like me, studying journalism or mass communication, better learn and remember material by relating it to an already established area of personal or professional expertise. Maintaining a blog about a particular topic or theme allows students like me to apply what they are learning to the real world.”
A Blog Can Document Your Exciting Adventures in Rome and Abroad
If you take the opportunity to study in Italy, a blog can act as a kind of interactive, multimedia travel journal. With no character limit and the ability to post pictures, videos, discussion threads, and more, maintaining a blog while you travel lets you share your stories in more detail than simple social media posts allow.
Not only does blogging about your journey offer great benefits to your professional portfolio and personal education as mentioned above, it also ensures that no magical memory you make is left overseas when your study abroad term comes to an end.
Don’t want to miss out on the long-term benefits blogging can bring?
Visit JCU and learn how you can study communications in Italy to get started.