JRN 450 is unlike any other journalism class I have taken. It t helped me to think more about business and marketing knowledge. I enjoyed this semester with this class because we are actually trying to fight for our own business idea. Although most of us still do not have the ability to make it come true, I believe maybe in one day one of us could make our business become real.

First of all, this class helped me to really think about my idea. I started to have interests in fashion since I was very young. But this field is very far from my drawing ability and design ability. However, this class provides me another possibility, like my original business idea, I could build an online shopping website which help people to find their best style. And this class also provided me a chance to experience the process of begin my own business. This would be really helpful when I want to start my own business in future.

The next thing I learned is how to write my own resume and sell myself to the company. This was a new experience to me, even though I had an internship before in China, because this time I need to find a market for myself in America. When I was in China, I could tell the interviewer that I am very good at English because I had study in America for 3 years.

What should I say when I was in America? Obviously, my English is not as good as any native speakers. However, during the whole process of the team hiring, I found that my sells point should be my international background. This helped me to be unique. My background could bring in more international marketing ideas for my group and it also helped me to consider some problems from another angle. From here, I learned that I should be proud of my background and try to use it as an advantage.

To be honest, I was a little pessimistic about things like entrepreneurship or “be your own boss.”  I had read or heard lots of failure cases about these; it is not hard to find out that those success cases are only the tips of the iceberg. After one semester’s learning, JRN 450 had changed my opinions. I started to realized that things are doable if we prepare ourselves better. After a whole semester consider about target audiences, MVPs, find your own sales points and etc. I found out that I need to learn to be more optimism because every success has its risks, without risks, there would be no success.

Another important part these class brought me is group working. I believe group working is also very crucial after we go out to the real world in future, it is very useful that I could experience this in class. I was very glad to join this group and every team member is very nice and hard-working. Gabrielle, as our leader, definitely know how to separate work to each of us but keep everything organized and efficient. We could use our advantages to build a better team work, at the same time, we were also complementary to each other’s disadvantages.

I learned how to trust my group members and corporate with them during work. I think this experience is very useful in future because as journalist or media worker, it is very common that we need to work in groups. And many things would be easier if you learned how to work with your team members.

And the best part of the whole semester is Detroit Startup Day! I had been to Detroit several times, but each time I was only sitting on the Michigan Flyer Bus went to the Metropolitan airport. I never really have a chance to actually walk on the street of Detroit and my imagination about this city was poor and unsafe because I had heard the news about this city was already broken. But this tour showed me a totally different Detroit than my imagination. This city was vivid and spirited. People in here is very nice and seems always welcome tours.

Unlike some large city such as New York City where people was too busy to say Hi or get to know each other, Detroit is a city where people are hardworking but people are willing to enjoy their life and get along each other. They love and enjoy their life which was showed on those colorful doodles on street.

From the study of one semester, I think I really find my interests on entrepreneurship and started to understand why so many people choose to do this. I think this class is not just about grades or articles, it is actually about how to adjust myself to the real world.

At the last, I really want to say “thank you” to Amy. Because I could feel how hard you worked to bring your friends to class, arrange the class materials and share every reading material to us. I believe everyone in class would say that you did help us understand entrepreneurship better!

Thank you! Merci!