2014 - Fall

The Beat: Covering Gen Y aka Quarterlifers

Course Number: JOUR-UA 201, Section 001

Day & Time: Tuesday 2:00pm-5:40pm

Location: 20 Cooper Square, room 654

Prerequisites: Foundations, Inquiry

This course is designed to hone the student journalist’s ability to research and report deeply and to be able to imagine and develop fresh ideas, test them with the strength of his or her reporting and resarch, and then to present them in story form. Students will be expected to keep weeky beat notes or blogs, exploring what is current in the topic and demonstrating week after week the shoeleather they have worn in pursuit of their subject matter. Out of this work will come four or five stories in narrative, explanatory or investigative style, depending on the instructor and the specific assignment. Syllabi differ by content of the course but all sections emphasize idea development, interview technique, reporting, background research and writing skills across genres. Broadcast sections vary only by medium.

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Relationships: transformed. Professions: redefined. Technology: exploding. Privacy: what privacy? The future: a world where time-honored maps and models have become useless.

Fascinating stuff to think and write about, and who better than you, to do it? You are GenY, the 80 million people aged 18-30, the first generation with a completely digital take on living.

“Emerging adults” have become a hot topic in both the media and academia: Boomerang kids who move back home after graduation, quarter-life crises about careers—or lack thereof, postponing long-term relationships, sexual economics, wanting more time to play before “settling down,” looking for emotional as well as economic payoff from a career, and more.

In “Covering Gen Y,” we will examine such issues as romantic, family and community relationships, the world of work, religion and spirituality, the impact of technology, lifestyles,and… well, you decide. You will write for the class website http://genyu.net/ and your individual beat blog, and be guided in doing a multimedia final project.

Last time around several class pieces got published including one by a student who went on a “technology diet” and another’s lament about her mother wanting to friend her on Facebook.

Prof. Mary Quigley writes and blogs about Gen Y issues.