Chris Chavez, one of my students at Marquette University, who hails from Jackson Heights in Queens, N.Y., sent me a remarkable email this week. He clearly is having a productive summer, which is vital for journalism students fresh off their freshman year. What I loved even more is how Chris presented it – clean and professional, sharable with others, including recruiters and editors. As I tell my students all the time, it is important that every correspondence – cover letters, email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. – shows that you can write and tell a good story. With Chris' permission, I offer his note here and will share it with students at the NABJ convention next week.
Dear Professor Lowe:
Hope your summer has been going well and you are enjoying the nice warm weather in the Midwest. I'm definitely getting the best of it on the East Coast. Just wanted to send you an update as to how things were going for me one month after school let out. Let's start off with my proudest moment of the summer thus far. On Saturday, I covered the 2012 Adidas Grand Prix at Icahn Stadium and rocked social media for Flotrack as I live tweeted the entire event. They were so pleased by my work and I just couldn't stop thinking about some of the lessons we learned in early on in JOUR1100. Hashtags were down perfectly (#aGPNY is what was used and the tweets went out from @Flotrack). I made sure to get in contact with Adidas before the meet, just to see if they wanted certain hashtags when one of their athletes did something notable or when the Dream Mile or Dream 100 was referred to. I was on my game!
I was on my game so much that some of the top guys at Flotrack said that I am going to be one of their contact points for New York, Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago and South Bend. Can't even begin to say how hyped I was to be a part of their brand for the day because of how notable they are in the track and field world. I was tweeting to an audience of more than 18,700 people. Every tweet was perfect and was retweeted by many people. You definitely have not heard the last of me with them. I may think of doing a full internship with them in Austin, Texas next year.
Moving onto The Stirring Straw. I was able to get credentials for the site with the Staten Island Yankees. This means that I will be heading out there and interviewing some prospects along with observing the game for trends to note. I'm excited to see where this goes. One of the ultimate dreams is to move all the way up to the major league level, so there are no complaints on my side by starting off in single-A. To look at it optimistically, I'm a journalism prospect in the Yankees minor league system.
On a random night, I decided to put together a cuttings.me portfolio. I listed all of my work with the Marquette Tribune. I'm in the process of looking into some of my top articles from elsewhere around the web. Here is the link to that: http://cuttings.me/christopherchavez. (You asked me to get that done at some point and I thought why not sooner rather than later.) This July, I will be staying at the University of Scranton for three weeks working with a summer program that I have a history with. I'll definitely be writing for The Stirring Straw while in Pennsylvania. But as soon as I'm back, I'll be on my grind again doing other work here and there.
Professor Lowe, I love keeping myself active and you've heard a bit about how I love running. Well, you can track my progress all throughout the summer on Twitter using #ChavezRunsNY. There's a Storify coming at the end of the summer, before #ChavezRunsMKE takes place! I've got the Milwaukee Brewers Half-Marathon on September 22 and I will soon talk to Tess Quinlan about possibly having a post-race interview or coverage afterward. Lastly, enjoy "The Best of Chris Chavez: MUTV 2011/2012" via YouTube. I sent it to Flotrack and they liked it, so you might too. This is just a small step in putting together a tape at the end of my Marquette career that I could possibly send to future employers. We'll definitely stay in contact this summer. Enjoy it.
Dear Professor Lowe:
Hope your summer has been going well and you are enjoying the nice warm weather in the Midwest. I'm definitely getting the best of it on the East Coast. Just wanted to send you an update as to how things were going for me one month after school let out. Let's start off with my proudest moment of the summer thus far. On Saturday, I covered the 2012 Adidas Grand Prix at Icahn Stadium and rocked social media for Flotrack as I live tweeted the entire event. They were so pleased by my work and I just couldn't stop thinking about some of the lessons we learned in early on in JOUR1100. Hashtags were down perfectly (#aGPNY is what was used and the tweets went out from @Flotrack). I made sure to get in contact with Adidas before the meet, just to see if they wanted certain hashtags when one of their athletes did something notable or when the Dream Mile or Dream 100 was referred to. I was on my game!
I was on my game so much that some of the top guys at Flotrack said that I am going to be one of their contact points for New York, Milwaukee, Madison, Chicago and South Bend. Can't even begin to say how hyped I was to be a part of their brand for the day because of how notable they are in the track and field world. I was tweeting to an audience of more than 18,700 people. Every tweet was perfect and was retweeted by many people. You definitely have not heard the last of me with them. I may think of doing a full internship with them in Austin, Texas next year.
Moving onto The Stirring Straw. I was able to get credentials for the site with the Staten Island Yankees. This means that I will be heading out there and interviewing some prospects along with observing the game for trends to note. I'm excited to see where this goes. One of the ultimate dreams is to move all the way up to the major league level, so there are no complaints on my side by starting off in single-A. To look at it optimistically, I'm a journalism prospect in the Yankees minor league system.
On a random night, I decided to put together a cuttings.me portfolio. I listed all of my work with the Marquette Tribune. I'm in the process of looking into some of my top articles from elsewhere around the web. Here is the link to that: http://cuttings.me/christopherchavez. (You asked me to get that done at some point and I thought why not sooner rather than later.) This July, I will be staying at the University of Scranton for three weeks working with a summer program that I have a history with. I'll definitely be writing for The Stirring Straw while in Pennsylvania. But as soon as I'm back, I'll be on my grind again doing other work here and there.
Professor Lowe, I love keeping myself active and you've heard a bit about how I love running. Well, you can track my progress all throughout the summer on Twitter using #ChavezRunsNY. There's a Storify coming at the end of the summer, before #ChavezRunsMKE takes place! I've got the Milwaukee Brewers Half-Marathon on September 22 and I will soon talk to Tess Quinlan about possibly having a post-race interview or coverage afterward. Lastly, enjoy "The Best of Chris Chavez: MUTV 2011/2012" via YouTube. I sent it to Flotrack and they liked it, so you might too. This is just a small step in putting together a tape at the end of my Marquette career that I could possibly send to future employers. We'll definitely stay in contact this summer. Enjoy it.
@Chris_J_Chavez @herbertlowe did it include another decision video? #couldnthelpit
— Tess Quinlan (@TessQuinlan) June 11, 2012
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