A Plate Of May Thorns
The students returned to Stanford this week, which brought about a startling realization regarding how crazily old I am: The class that starts this fall was most likely born in 1992 - the year I graduated from college; and they probably already know more than I ever will.
My degree was in telecommunications with a minor in journalism, which means everything I learned in school is totally, utterly obsolete. Telecommunications in 1992 was land-line phones, cable & broadcast TV and AM/FM radio. That's about it; none of this 3G, Hulu, Facebook and Tex-mex. I learned audio production in analog studios where we edited tape with razor blades. I worked at a radio station that had live human announcers playing vinyl records. Journalism in 1992 was printed newspapers and the fairness doctrine. We were given assignments in which if you made even one factual or stylistic error you got a failing grade. Today, doing actual journalism is a one-way ticket to poverty. The only money is in saying exactly what your advertisers want and pretending it's news, and only gullible old white people believe or pay attention to that stuff anymore, so in 10 years that will also die out. If I were to lose my job and have to find a new one, I wouldn't know what to do. I'd be a completely useless person.
My degree was in telecommunications with a minor in journalism, which means everything I learned in school is totally, utterly obsolete. Telecommunications in 1992 was land-line phones, cable & broadcast TV and AM/FM radio. That's about it; none of this 3G, Hulu, Facebook and Tex-mex. I learned audio production in analog studios where we edited tape with razor blades. I worked at a radio station that had live human announcers playing vinyl records. Journalism in 1992 was printed newspapers and the fairness doctrine. We were given assignments in which if you made even one factual or stylistic error you got a failing grade. Today, doing actual journalism is a one-way ticket to poverty. The only money is in saying exactly what your advertisers want and pretending it's news, and only gullible old white people believe or pay attention to that stuff anymore, so in 10 years that will also die out. If I were to lose my job and have to find a new one, I wouldn't know what to do. I'd be a completely useless person.