I’m going to skip the past; I tend to wax on about it enough. I’m going to start with the future, because that’s what I’m most interested in, and then talk about the present, because as graduating students, that’s what you’re most interested in.
* Experience: Get involved now, today, with an online site. Do it from your dorm room.
* Contacts: Networking is key; on the internet, your voice can carry
* Passion: Without this, you won’t be a happy online journalist. You need to be ready to speak up for what you believe, online and with your co-workers.
“I find myself thinking of a checklist Wozniak wrote a few years ago describing how to become a genius. His advice was straightforward yet strangely terrible: You must clarify your goals, gain knowledge through spaced repetition, preserve health, work steadily, minimize stress, refuse interruption, and never resist sleep when tired. This should lead to radically improved intelligence and creativity. The only cost: turning your back on every convention of social life.”
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.”
You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)