“Get inside! Get inside the building now!”

Katie Shatzer and I are practically shoved into a building on Belmont University’s campus by a security guard, as we hear warnings of a blast in three minutes in the big hole on campus that will one day be their Pharmacy school. Barely inside the building, we suddenly hear a loud boom and feel the building shake under our feet. We look incredulously at each other and start laughing, clutching our bags to our sides. Just another great memory from the Southeastern Journalism Conference 2009.

The SEJC Conference, which was Feb. 12-14 on Belmont’s campus in Nashville, Tenn., brought together hundreds of journalism students from several colleges throughout the Southeast. As a college in the Southeast region, the communications department takes students every year. This year, 15 students attended, providing a unique experience for everyone, as it was all our first time to attend the conference.

The conference provided sessions ranging in topic to fit a variety of interests. The most interesting session I attended was on social networking sites and their importance in the modern-day communication world, as more and more people and businesses become a part of Twitter and LinkedIn. While I did not agree with everything the session leader said—he encouraged us to get a Twitter account in order for us to talk to future employers, which I don’t think is very professional—he provided a knowledgeable presentation on the benefits of creating an online identity.

The most anticipated part of the conference, I dare say, was the onsite competition. In the competition, students participated in different writing areas—news, entertainment, feature—and had an hour to research their story and an hour to write. I participated in entertainment, where I attended a faux press conference with a member of a local Nashville band with around ten other students. After the conference, we had an hour to write our story and turn it in to be judged.

While I enjoyed the fast-paced, thrilling side of writing a story for competition, I enjoyed more being able to connect with students from other schools and states and talk to them about their goals as a journalist. In the end, it wasn’t about the competition or who was going to win; it became more to me about reconnecting with other journalism majors from several different schools and backgrounds.

Union students represented the school well, as we took awards in several of the onsite competitions. Katherine Pullen won first place in feature writing, Katie Shatzer won second place in news writing, Elizabeth Wood and Daniel Callicott took third place in public relations campaigns and I took third place in entertainment writing.

We also took home awards from the overall competition—Jonathan Huskey came away with first place in Best Sports Writer, Emily Rawls took first place in graphic design, Kyle Kurlick took second place in best news photographer and Sarah McBroom took third place in best news writer.

Overall, the conference provided a fun journalism filled weekend. For me, however, it wasn’t about scaring the other schools with our journalism skills—it was about connecting with the other Union students and professors on the trip that I had never really had a chance to talk with one-on-one before. The conference was an invaluable experience that all communication students should attend before they leave Union University.