Straight from Emerson News, here’s the latest on the Beijing Olympics Program:

Thirty-five Emerson students selected to work at Beijing Olympics

03/27/08

Thirty-five Emerson students enrolled in International Sports Reporting are preparing to travel to Beijing this summer to be part of the official Olympic News Service (ONS). The students will work side-by-side with professional staff to cover Olympic events, to provide background information to the media on athletes and competitions and to create materials for the international press.

Emerson is one of only five colleges invited to participate in ONS. The other schools are the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Missouri, Ithaca College and the University of Iowa.

Officials from the Beijing Organizing Committee came to campus recently to test the students, and all of them passed with flying colors, according to Assistant Professor of Journalism Paul Niwa, who team teaches the course along with Associate Professor of Visual and Media Arts Shujen Wang.

The photo above shows the students in Boston’s Chinatown. They are Seth Adam ’08, graduate student Sara Alterman, James Clouthier ’08, Trisha Cowen ’08, Justin DeMarco ’09, Bryan Fennessey ’08, Ashley Fetyko ’08, graduate student Aiden FitzGerald, Khristopher Flack ’08, James Foley ’07, graduate student Adrienne Franceschi, graduate student Sandra Garcia, Sara Hogan ’08, graduate student Susan Jackson, graduate student Jenna Lebel, graduate student Bruce Lerch II, Alexandra Matthews ’09, Cathryn McDonough ’09, Katrina McIsaac , graduate student Laura McLam, graduate student Rose Mellion, Andrea Mooney ’08, graduate student Michael Nagel, Lloyd Nelson III ’08, Sylvie Packard ’08, Jennie Palluzzi ’08, graduate student Craig Panzer, Mikala Reasbeck ’08, graduate student Anna Sabella, Christina Skevington ’08, graduate student Bettina Stephenson, graduate student Helen Todd, graduate student Marc Velasquez, Jessica Wallner ’08, and Rebecca Wishnietsky ’08.

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Can you find me in the Beijing Olympic Program Class Picture?

After a competitive interview process to get into the program back in October and then a grueling test administered by BOCOG officials over two weeks ago, it is official:

I’m going to the Beijing Olympics this summer!!

It has been weeks of preparation, anticipation and suspense waiting for this announcement. After reading the email, there was sigh of relief and now a gigantic smile is plastered on my face.

Here’s a glimpse of some landmarks since I first found out about the program:

Timeline:

Sept. 13 – The Beijing Olympics Program was announced

Sept. 24 – Information session on program

Sept. 28 – Deadline to apply – 143 students applied

Oct. 15 – Notified I made it to second round in application process – 58 students selected

Oct. 30 – My interview

Nov. 1 – News that I got into the program – 35 students selected

Dec. 14 – Meeting for accepted students – first time we meet

Jan. 23 – Sports Journalism and Chinese Culture class starts

Feb. 27 – Written portion of test with BOCOG officials

Feb. 28 – Debate portion of test with the BOCOG officials

Mar. 18 – Official confirmation that the whole class is going!!

Next on the timeline will be departure for the Olympics! I have to be in Beijing July 8. Between now and then I will be working on my Mandarin and preparing for the journalism tasks we’ll be doing at the Olympics.

Thanks so much for everyone’s ongoing support!

- One ecstatic Helen!

Just to give you a quick update, I won’t find out for another week whether I passed THE TEST or not. It was pretty intense. The debate aspect was conducted in the focus group room and the Beijing officials stood on the other side of the double-sided mirror to monitor and video-tape us! They took the video tapes and our written portions back to China where they’re being graded now!

Our professors have only given us positive feedback on what the officials thought about our performance so I’m staying very optimistic. I feel confident about my personal effort and team’s showing. Mr. Gao, one of the higher-ups, mentioned to Paul, one of our professors, that we did a better job presenting than some of their employees for the English portion of China’s Central Television news! I’m taking that as a very good sign!

Without a doubt, I will let everyone know the outcome as soon as I hear the results!

Thanks for everyone’s support leading up to the test! I felt all the good vibes and positive thoughts sent my direction!

Xie xie ni!

(Thank you very much!)

-Helen

Check out this youtube clip on a news story about the ONS selecting Australian volunteers. The testing mentioned in the states is what I’m doing next week. Note the description of “grueling” testing!

So what is this test?  This test will determine whether or not I go to Beijing this summer…no pressure!!  I actually had to sign a waiver stating that I understand Emerson doesn’t have the last say on my participation in the Olympics program!

With only 13 days to go, our class is still not clear exactly what we will be tested on.  First we were told that it was going to be on note taking accuracy and interview skills but just today we were told it’s going to be on note taking and debate skills!!  For the record, I have no debate training…and I don’t think fighting with my brother as an adolescent counts!  Beijing officials from the Olympic News Service are flying to Boston to monitor and grade our performance.  The debate aspect I believe will test us more on our composure and ability to survive stressful circumstances…which they are supplying plenty of already!

To prepare, for the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to get up to speed on my journalistic skills.  This involves listening to endless online interviews and taking notes word-for-word on quotable material.  I’m finding that it’s a lot harder than it sounds.  This past weekend I went to a college invitational meet and interviewed my first real athlete.  He won the men’s mile and kept throwing me off by looking at what I was writing as he answered my questions.

I’ve also been working on coming up with good questions to ask in interviews.  Luckily I have a friend, the same one who hooked my up with the Boston Indoors ticket, who is a die-hard fan of running and willingly shares his knowledge and love for the sport with me which helps a lot when formulating intelligent questions. (His name is Mike and I’ll probably refer to him a lot since he’s my information and meet buddy)

On top of this, in class we do drills and work on writing wire copy – what we’ll actually be writing at the Olympics.  The importance of grammar in a miniscule  5 sentence piece has never been more important in my life!

In the next 13 days we’re also going to be doing a crash course on debating too.  I’m just glad the Beijing officials don’t expect us to be fluent in Mandarin in two weeks…

More updates to come….and I’ll throw in some actual travel-related blogs in the near future too

- Helen