Students Across Iowa Visit William Penn Digicomm Program

High school students from around the state attended the digital communication visit day at William Penn University.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Letting students explore and learn about the tools of communication is the premise behind the William Penn University Digicomm Student Visit Day this week.

Matt Wagner, Director of Digital Communication at William Penn University explained that this was the 3rd year for the visit day. The idea is to invite local high school students and have them explore the different ways of communicating with the world around them.

The three hands-on workshops included sessions in radio, TV broadcast and social media.

The visiting students were served lunch, while former Des Moines Register sportswriter Bryce Miller spoke about being a part of the industry.

Wagner says the increased awareness of the school’s program is another great benefit, and could potentially help to grow the program for the university. “There’s a lot of area schools that aren’t even aware of the program that we have here,” said Wagner. “I think they are impressed when they get up here.”

The visit potentially finds an interest in digital communication that the student didn’t know they had. That was the case in a visit last year, when a high school student came to the visit day and found she liked journalism. “It was sort of a catalyst for realizing she sort of liked the creativity of communication and media,” says Wagner.

William Penn University offers the communication degree that has three emphasis that can be pursued; television broadcast, journalism and public relations. The visit day didn’t target any specific emphasis. “It’s meant to give them experience in multi-media communication,” says Wagner.

This year was the largest event so far. In fact, so many students and schools showed interest, a second day in March is being planned. North Mahaska was one of the five schools in attendance at the visit day.