From the Classroom to the Newsroom, Journalism Major Set for Broadcast Career

If you asked Keene State senior Emma Hamilton a few years ago what she wanted to do or where she wanted to go, she probably would have told you she wanted to be a hairdresser or go to college in Florida. For Hamilton, the thought of attending Keene State didn’t cross her mind until the last minute – but that last minute decision made all the difference.

Hamilton, who is in Keene State’s Morris-August Honors Program, hadn’t considered studying journalism until a friend’s father pointed out that she is a good public speaker, and she realized she enjoyed being in front of a camera. So she decided to look toward a career in broadcast journalism.

“With the Journalism Department, though we’re small, we’re mighty,” Hamilton said. She’ll leave Keene State with relationships with her professors that will continue long past the date of graduation. “I think that all the professors really care,” Hamilton said. “They care about you while you’re in the classroom, but they also care about you outside of the classroom, whether it’s print, whether it is multimedia, or KSC-TV.”

What she has learned inside the classroom has directly correlated with her experience in the working world through internships. During the summer of 2017, Hamilton served as an intern for Tampa Bay’s Fox 13 News. Though she said it was mostly an observational internship, being there assured her that the broadcast field was exactly where she wanted to be.

Still, there were times when the reporters kept her on her toes by having her interview people for practice. One interviewee who stood out in particular was a man who had lost his home in a fire. He began crying during his interview. “You feel like you did your job because you’re getting the emotion out of the person,” Hamilton said. “Getting to experience that, holding the microphone to the man’s face and having to ask questions and think about it off the top of your head – it was exciting. It really got the adrenaline going.”

The internship confirmed that what she’d been learning in her journalism classes aligns with practices in real-world newsrooms. “Everything that they were doing in the Fox 13 newsroom reflected what I learned in the classroom,” she said.” This semester, Hamilton is interning with Inside Owl Athletics and Keene State’s Admissions Department.

Since she has come to Keene State, she has been able to be a part of many different co-curricular activities, including the cheerleading team, the honors program, the student newspaper, orientation staff, and student government.

The thing she likes best about Keene State, Hamilton said, is the accepting community. “People are able to be themselves here, which I really think makes a difference for the college experience,” she said. “It’s been the best thing about Keene State and I think that’s what makes it the hardest to leave.”

– Grace Pecci ’18