UConn Journalism Student Dalton Zbierski Attempts to Conquer the Air

Wel­come to the world of aspir­ing stu­dent jour­nal­ist Dal­ton Zbier­s­ki. I am a first semes­ter junior begin­ning my third year at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut. As a jour­nal­ism major, I’ve been a mem­ber of the Dai­ly Cam­pus, UConn most promi­nent stu­dent news­pa­per, for the past two years. I’ve cov­ered mul­ti­ple sports includ­ing the soc­cer and base­ball teams.  I can accred­it my pur­suit of a career in jour­nal­ism to the fact that the prospect of inform­ing the pub­lic has for a many years intrigued me.

It’s amaz­ing how one can sum­ma­rize and cap­ture a moment using the com­bi­na­tion of let­tered words. Let­ters have no sig­nif­i­cance until one pro­vides them with a pur­pose, a real­i­ty that few peo­ple embrace. Words are com­pa­ra­ble to a puz­zle, when pieced togeth­er prop­er­ly no lim­it can be placed on the impact they can have.

I pri­mar­i­ly uti­lize online sources such as Twit­ter and CNN.com to remain informed regard­ing the cur­rent rel­e­van­cies of the world, but will addi­tion­al­ly on occa­sion read the Jour­nal Inquir­er and Hart­ford Courant. Both news­pa­pers, fin­ger­ing this state to be their tar­get audi­ence, are con­ve­nient to my inter­ests as I reside two towns over in Stafford, Con­necti­cut. I on rare occa­sion run across sites such as Buz­zfeed and Dead­spin but do fre­quent­ly vis­it BarstoolSports.com.

This semes­ter I look to shift my inter­ests into broad­cast jour­nal­ism. I have my ini­tial train­ing ses­sion with WHUS sched­uled to take place with­in the next few weeks. UPDATE: I joined the sta­tion offi­cial­ly on Mon­day, Sept. 8) Hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to voice to the pub­lic both news and my opin­ions regard­ing cer­tain sub­jects would allow me to use my nat­ur­al tal­ents to the fullest. It would also be an enjoy­able expe­ri­ence; work is made less dif­fi­cult when it becomes some­thing you strive to become bet­ter at.

Music is cur­rent­ly the biggest part of my life. Although I have put only min­i­mum effort into pub­li­ciz­ing my music due to the fact it bla­tant­ly is not yet good enough, writ­ing and record­ing have become an obses­sion. My improve­ment has been evolv­ing rapid­ly as I con­tin­ue to study the game and indus­try to the let­ter. This week I’m work­ing 34 hours on top of school. The end goal is a record deal as soon as it can pos­si­bly come. One must spend mon­ey to make mon­ey. I’m a some­what intel­li­gent and real­is­tic indi­vid­ual and know that I could be sit­ting on some­thing huge, explain­ing why I work so hard at and for it. That said I do not let it inter­fere with my aca­d­e­m­ic endeav­ors, I strive to do great in both.

For the past two years I have been close­ly knit with our school’s base­ball team and am look­ing to announce their games this sea­son, as last year’s announc­er grad­u­at­ed leav­ing an open com­pe­ti­tion for his job. I think I’ve become tight with the team because they’re essen­tial­ly try­ing to do the same thing I am and work just as hard. I don’t encounter many peo­ple that work like I do so we get along well togeth­er. If I bring ener­gy to the table, stay healthy and approach it from the right angle I can see myself trav­el­ing across the coun­try on the week­ends next semes­ter with my friends to do some­thing I love. If I were to trav­el out­side of this region for my musi­cal endeav­ors, it won’t be for sev­er­al years. I want a taste of the lifestyle now, I’m long­ing for it as I’m over hear­ing sto­ries of “how amaz­ing Mem­phis or Charleston was last week­end.” I’m going to work hard and if I am able to land this gig, it’d be hard for life to get bet­ter at this age.

I hope to use this course to gain insight into the rapid­ly evolv­ing, new school era of jour­nal­ism that we are cur­rent­ly in the midst of. Every indus­try in this world evolves and changes. Jour­nal­ism is caught in the upheaval of a sig­nif­i­cant change. This class has def­i­nite­ly caught my atten­tion. It appears to be a course I will ben­e­fit from jux­ta­posed to a course cen­tered around physics or geog­ra­phy. I am look­ing to spread my brand and make a name by the end of this year, both via the radio and through the record­ing stu­dio. If I don’t get it this year that’s okay, I’m not even 20 yet and will try again next year. This class could def­i­nite­ly con­tribute to the con­struc­tion of my foun­da­tions as I look to do what I plan to do. Look­ing for­ward to a great semes­ter!! (Sor­ry if I wrote too much I wrote this for me to look back at and see what I did right and wrong as I look to exe­cute this year so that if I fail I can approach it more intel­li­gent­ly next time.)

-Dal­ton Zbierski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Pho­to­graph: Dal­ton Ross radio inter­view from Sep­tem­ber 2012. Pho­to­graph tak­en by Rowan Lucey and edit­ed by Guar­av Sinha)