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Who are you and why are you here?
On Thursday, the Russian journalism students finally had a chance to ask the Americans, “Who are you and what are you doing here in Rostov?” Read on to find out more about what they discovered.
As part of RAJI 4, Amy and I were asked to run some journalism workshops here at Rostov State University. Our first workshop was about interviewing and we asked the class questions about interview preparation and techniques. During the discussion Amy wrote the ideas on the board, while I lead the group through the before, during,and after of the interview process.
Then it was time for Amy and I to be the guinea pigs, sitting in front of 14 curious Russian students while they plied us with questions ranging from “What is it like to be a journalist in New York?” to “How do you think journalists affect the mass consciousness?” We told them to think about the interview as a press conference with the final article being a profile about us for their local student newspaper.
The students seemed surprised to find out that Amy had been to Russia twice before and knew some of the language. As for me, they wanted to know what words I had learned since arriving three days before, to which I could only answer three (excuse the spelling)- privyet (hello), Spasiba (thank you), and Dasvidanya (goodbye).
After the class many of the students took extra time to “fact-check,” asking us to repeat some things and clarify others. The students then had the opportunity to take the pieces home to work on them further. They’ll hand in the final drafts to us today and once we read them we’ll let you know what they say. I’m curious to read what they think about us Americans!
Filed under: Inside RAJI