It’s not a physical card of course — and it’s not an idea, concept or dream — it’s a weapon. It’s a tool that’s more useful than any little piece of technology Steve Jobs could come up with, and in just a couple months, I lose it forever.

Here’s how the Student Journalist Card works. You phone or visit your source, whether that be the mayor of a small business, dictator of a country, rock star or scummy landlord, and you sit down to interview them. You say something along the lines of, “Hi! I’m Matt Nelson, a journalism student at Drake University, and I was really really hoping you could maybe help me out with an article I’m working on?”

You sound naive, eager and maybe a little stupid — which is exactly what you want. You want your source to underestimate you, to let down their guard so they feel free-er in answering your questions.

This might sound underhanded, but it really isn’t. The point of any interview is to get your subject comfortable speaking with you, so they speak from the heart and capture the essence of their story in quotes that are interpretable and eloquent.

This works for hard as well as soft stories. Sometimes people get nervous talking to people they know are media-savvy, and being a student journalist isn’t nearly as intimidating.

As a student journalist, I am young, naive and prone to stumbling. As a student journalist at Drake, I can appear to be all these things while still being adept on my feet. It’s a handy tactic that’s gotten me great stories, great opportunities — and the chance to get the real voice of my source out.

If you’re wondering what compelled me to travel to such a place as Dubuque, and with such a diverse group of characters, then you’re in luck because I’m going to tell you whether you like it or not.

We were travelling to the town for our journalism capstone, “Think” magazine. Our mission: to find and retrieve compelling content for the World Wide Web in a variety of formats, including text, video, audio and reliable sources.

“Think” is the class that takes everything you learn as a journalism major at Drake, whether a magazine, News/Internet or graphic designer, and puts it all together. Quite literally, it is the culmination of my Drake experience, and I could not be more excited for it. Our travels to Dubuque are a significant part of our project, and heavily involves our website. I’m not quite ready to divulge the mission behind it just yet — but I can tell all of you persistent readers: keep coming back here, because our first launch is coming up quicker than you can imagine!

I had a wonderful time in this city by the river, and it wasn’t just the location. I’ve gotten to know the other students well during my four years at Drake, and at this point, any interaction with them becomes a rewarding experience.

I cannot say enough how close you become with the people in your major at Drake. You have classes with them, but it’s more than that. I’ve done projects with them, adhered to the same deadlines with them, confronted challenges with them I never dreamed of facing when I lived in Northern Minnesota.

We started our Dubuque adventure in the Sunshine Family Cafe, which was bustling with the after-church crowd. We quickly stood out as we were the only people in the room tweeting pictures of our food before we ate it. We launched into a discussion of our day’s plan, but for every decision we made and every point we considered, we also found time to sneak in minutes of laughter.

“You’re not from around here,” one woman came up to us said. She was right — we’d traveled three hours from Des Moines to a place where state lines converged and we hoped to find something magic. And (although I haven’t gone through the tape or pictures just yet), I really think we did.

We’re talking three degree temperatures here. Now, being a guy from Northern Minnesota, that’s normally not a big deal, but even I don’t normally run five miles when the mercury dips that low. Holy Jesus, it’s a miracle I made it out alive.

I’m not sure about my time — as far as I can tell, the YMCA hasn’t posted anything yet. I didn’t do as well as I wanted and had to walk a couple blocks. I attribute that to my five shirts and four layers of pants (it took me about five minutes to find my car keys afterwards, as I had eight pockets to choose from).

Overall — it was great! I’m still planning on doing the half marathon for Relays this year, and I’m going to need to get my training butt in gear. Half maraton for Relays, here we come!

Oh, and check out photos from the run at the Des Moines Register’s site!

http://www.coveritlive.com/index2.php/option=com_altcaster/task=viewaltcast/altcast_code=97a5d5d04d/height=550/width=470

The project was this: to go in and try on several pairs of shoes and to try and find a correlation between comfort and weight, without the subject having the ability to actually see the shoes.

It sounds basic, but I had never done anything like it before. Apparently, this sort of thing is done all the time. My professor told me that there is a waiting list of students who want to have the opportunity to conduct their own research. They are given time, university funds and equipment in their studies.

How cool is that?! I’m not interested in doing research any time soon, but the prospect of conducting organized studies in a professional manner with professor support was intriguing to me. It’s just another example in my mind of how cool Drake can be.

The test itself wasn’t too bad — although the taped goggles I had to wear to prevent me from seeing the shoes were a little unnerving. As far as I’ve heard, they’re still looking for subjects, so if you’re interested just shoot me a message in the comments!

The race is happening next Saturday morning — I might try and set up some sort of “Cover it Live” iFrame on this blog and live tweet the event. I know no one will probably feel compelled enough to follow it, but that isn’t why I’m doing it. As a News/Internet major at Drake, it’s important to take advantage of web tools available to you, and I try to incorporate them whenever it’s feasible for me to do so.

If you’ve never seen cover it live, you may want to watch how I use it! If you’re thinking of doing journalism at Drake, this is a very handy tool you’ll want to know how to use.

My checklist of things to get done before the run:

• Get another five mile run in and under the target time
• Practice my coordination with tweeting and running
• Get to look like this guy:
• 

The best and worst experiences of my Drake career were spent on the staff of the student newspaper, The Times-Delphic. My involvement on that staff has taught me an incredible amount about perseverance, Adobe Creative Suite and how to pull effective all-nighters. I have found some of the closest friends in my life and have witnessed an incredible amount of campus life and politics.

So, when the newspaper was awarded the College Newspaper of the Year last Thursday night, I was pretty excited.

I was also excited to see all the other awards that came out of last year’s stellar staff. We won for sports stories, news stories, profiles and photographs. Several pieces of award-winning content came from the Drake Relays issue from last year. This was especially exciting for me, since I served as Relays Editor and fostered some of these stories into existence.

You can find the complete list of awards at the above link. And please take a few seconds to peruse the Drake Relays issue from last year, and all the other virtual editions!

Working on the Times-Delphic was an incredible experience for me, and it’s one that no Drake journalism student should ever ignore. If you’re interested in working for the paper next year, feel free to email me or comment and I’ll put you in touch with the right people!

Patch doesn’t just grab everyone to cover stories — I had been recommended by a Drake professor. I quickly discussed the assignment with the editor and accepted it.

The story was a tragic one: covering the funeral of a 16-year-old Ankeny boy, Joe, who died of heart complications while awaiting a heart transplant.

Despite the heaviness of the source material, I knew this would be a fairly easy assignment. Another reporter had already interviewed the family and friends of the deceased and written a couple compelling articles that worked well as source material. I was able to quickly familiarize myself before walking into the church.

There were some circumstances, however, that I could not prepare for. Journalism school does not, for example, show you how to manage your emotions when observing the pain of mourners. They can’t teach you to anticipate the minutiae of every assignment, and many times I won’t know how I will react until I am in the middle of a situation. That’s when you find out how brave you really are. That’s when you find out what you’re made of.

And there was something about this particular assignment that resonated with me: seven years to the day before this funeral, I had attended a similar event. This was long before my journalism career started, and I was one of the people in a packed church, mourning a high school sophomore named Mickey who had died under tragic circumstances.

When I looked around at the crowd at Joe’s funeral, memories of that funeral from long ago began surfacing. I could see the faces of all these kids in here, and I knew what they were going through.That sense of hopelessness, despair and disbelief — you deal with so much at once when you grieve for the first time. It’s the first time you have to acknowledge that mortality exists, and it changes a person. I could see it in the eyes of the other Ankeny students. I knew what a long road it would face.

The funny thing is, Mickey’s death led to one of the greatest working relationships I’ve ever had. A reporter for the Hibbing Daily Tribune wrote a stellar article about his life and times, and when I saw her two months later, I shook her hand and thanked her for her work.

Two years later, in 2007, I applied and got an internship for the Hibbing paper, where I would end up working off and on for five years. That reporter was still working there, and she still remembered my gesture of gratitude. A bond instantly formed between us, and she ended up being a great editor who gave challenging assignments that pushed me to learn how to be a good journalist. Despite all my schooling at Drake, I never would have been able to tackle Joe’s funeral so effortlessly without the lessons I learned at the Hibbing Daily Tribune.

There is a strange circle that arises in this. I don’t know what it all means. All I know is that the graceful coverage Mickey received several years ago has compelled me to write the final words of the deceased with the utmost respect.

My response to you is to get off your butt and get to work. I’ve done two marathons and one half marathon since I was 18. Despite all the sweat, nipple bleeding and occasional cold shakes, they were COMPLETELY worth it.

I didn’t run any race last year and I really regretted it. So this year, I’m back on the training horse and hard at work, although my approach and my goals are somewhat different than they have been in the past.

This year, for example, I want to earn a solid marathon time, not just finish the race. To do that, I’m planning on running two races beforehand, and using those results to determine my final marathon time.

The first race takes place in late February: the red flannel run. And you have no idea how excited I am for it!

It’s five miles. In red flannel. And I’ve got the plaid to pull it off (even suspenders… This is gonna be great). It’s sponsored by the YMCA in Des Moines. I’m running it with a friend of mine, Mary Bess Bolling, who is a fellow News-Internet major who also works at the Y. She just started a great little blog here if you want to check it out.

My plan for this sharp little five mile run is 8 minute miles, so 40 minutes or less. For some of you established runners that might seem like a breeze, but I’m fat so back off. I’m thinking this goal is pretty realistic for me.

The next race I plan to do: the Drake Relays half marathon in April. During my freshman year, I did the 5K, which was a blast, and it only feels natural that I should finish my college career with the largest of the available races. In that race, I hope to finish in 1:45:00 or less. It’s a steep goal–but two summers ago I finished a half in just under two hours, and I think that while this will be a challenge, it’s completely within my ability.

Following that, I plan on running a marathon. I haven’t settled on a final location of choice yet– although I will say that Duluth hosts a great one in the form of Grandma’s Marathon. The whole process should keep me moving and active in 2012. Should be a good time.

That’s right– I, along with 34 other Drake students, got food, catered to candidates and did anything we were asked to do. Four of us returned for the Iowa Caucuses.

Both experiences were incredible. During the debates, we were on call for everything, getting food from the Drake Diner (every exec at ABC loves the Drake Diner, for some reason…), to manning the door of the candidates bathroom, to finding tables will short notice.

That last request went straight to me. A couple of ABC photographers showed up and declared that the Internet ABC had established was too slow for their needs. Who better to turn to for help than someone who actually majored in the Internet?

I was sent on a quest for a username and password. I succeeded, but only with a wireless connection. No, they said, they would need a wired connection.

After a brief hesitancy, I provided them with my Drake ID info and got them online. They were really grateful, so grateful in fact that I nabbed a business card. That’s when I found out that they guy I told not to look up porn using my account had actually been the head of photography on LOST.

I could’ve used a hatch to get out of there at that point, but he was pretty cool about it. He was glad I had been a fan of the show and sentenced up sending me a giant tube of LOST posters that are now tacked around my apartment.

(Sidenote: This marks the second time that my Drake experience has directly introduced me to the cast and crew of one of my favorite shows. The first time was last April, when I snagged an unexpected exclusive with Michael Emerson, who portrayed a major villain on The show. You can watch my awkward interview with him here).

There were several of these chance encounters that became meaningful. The head of security at the debates had been a crack detective in New York. He talked to me an another intern at length about the best local barbecue (Woody’s Smoke Shack, sorry Jethros….). Then there was the makeup artist at the caucuses who told me about what it was like to interact with the candidates on a tangible level. She called Mitt Romney a name I can’t write here; but thought Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum were genuinely nice, gracious people. Or the red-headed broadcast reporter who showed us how ad-hoc broadcasts work and let us watch her deliver live from feet away.

I don’t know if it’ll lead to a job in the future, but for now, I’ll just be happy to sit tight and see what happens.

Oh, and Mitt Romney was ORANGE. Ask yourself, do you really want an oompa-loompah for a president?