News is just a click away
"Do you like to write or take photos?"
That was my opening line last night as I reached out to a couple of hundred high school students at the annual Cerritos College University fair held in the campus gym. While the goal of the event is to stage a university fair emphaszing four-year colleges and universities from around Southern California, the entire state and the nation, each year the college opens up a few tables for Cerritos programs to let high school students know we offer a good first two years of study. I was there to promote the journalism and radio-tv programs.
If students replied (often in front of their parents) that they like to write, I pitched writing for the student newspaper here. If they like to take photos, then I needed photographers. And then the stronger pitch followed to get them thinking about coming here. If they didn't like either, I asked if they like to design things (we need page designers) or if they ever wanted to be on radio. If I struck out then I simply suggested they needed to follow campus news in our print or online edition.
Each pitch, regardless of outcome, ended with our outstanding talonmarks.com web site where they could keep up on campus news. My table was infamous for the evening because I was handing out free clicker noisemakers with the web site address printed on them. "Cerritos news is just (click, click) a click away." Always gets a smile and everyone wants a clicker.
The other vendors don't like them, though. Imagine hundreds of people walking around in a closed environment clicking away. Drives them mad. I got three faux death threats. Of course, at the end of the evening, the vendors all came by my table wanting their clicker, too.
I also got the opportunity to connect with head counselors from feeder high schools and sell my program. "I'm the one responsible for all the noise," I'd say. And immediately I had a bond with them.
Photo courtesy Cerritos Photojournalisim class
That was my opening line last night as I reached out to a couple of hundred high school students at the annual Cerritos College University fair held in the campus gym. While the goal of the event is to stage a university fair emphaszing four-year colleges and universities from around Southern California, the entire state and the nation, each year the college opens up a few tables for Cerritos programs to let high school students know we offer a good first two years of study. I was there to promote the journalism and radio-tv programs.
If students replied (often in front of their parents) that they like to write, I pitched writing for the student newspaper here. If they like to take photos, then I needed photographers. And then the stronger pitch followed to get them thinking about coming here. If they didn't like either, I asked if they like to design things (we need page designers) or if they ever wanted to be on radio. If I struck out then I simply suggested they needed to follow campus news in our print or online edition.
Each pitch, regardless of outcome, ended with our outstanding talonmarks.com web site where they could keep up on campus news. My table was infamous for the evening because I was handing out free clicker noisemakers with the web site address printed on them. "Cerritos news is just (click, click) a click away." Always gets a smile and everyone wants a clicker.
The other vendors don't like them, though. Imagine hundreds of people walking around in a closed environment clicking away. Drives them mad. I got three faux death threats. Of course, at the end of the evening, the vendors all came by my table wanting their clicker, too.
I also got the opportunity to connect with head counselors from feeder high schools and sell my program. "I'm the one responsible for all the noise," I'd say. And immediately I had a bond with them.
Photo courtesy Cerritos Photojournalisim class
posted by Rich Cameron | Link to this post
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