Debra McGaughey visits Texas Southern University Communication students – delivers uplifting speech

Debra McGaughey the Director of Marketing and Communication at The Houston Community College (HCC) visited The Texas Southern University’s (TSU) Introduction to Journalism Class on April 10 to give students an insight into their career path She has spent many years in the field and has basically mastered the process.

The information Ms.Mcgaughey gave to the students was powerful and uplifting. She knew how to engage her audience. For example, this class is full of young individuals with a drive for journalism and Ms. Mcgaughey connected with them. Journalism is a career that requires the drive.Ms. Mcgaughey made students to understand that the journey to become successful journalist is not easy and requires a lot of determination. 

She explained how competitive and tedious the journalism career is. She helped students understand that the profession of Journalism is like climbing a totem pole and one must start at the bottom to work the way up to the top. Ms. Mcgaughey stressed to students, the importance of completing their internships during their undergraduate years, she states that these internships can set peers apart from each other and are also a great learning tool. She told her own internship experience. She held her internship at the New York Times.Ms. Mcgaughey stressed that with internships you gain knowledge and hands on experience that you wouldn’t gain in the classroom.  

Furthermore, Ms. Mcgaughey discussedthe importance of being a credible journalist and what it takes to become great at the craft. “Credibility is very important in the aspect of journalism. In order to be an excellent journalist, you have to be credible. Without credibility, your words are not valuable,” Ms. Mcgaughey said.  She also stressed how demanding this profession is, making journalists practice with many long nights and a heavy work load. “There will be times you are sent on a story you have no knowledge on but as the reporter on sight you must educate yourself in order to get the story”, she said.  

This made us understand that there will be situations where you get sent on assignment which you have no prior knowledge of. That, Ms. Mcgaughey said, should not stop you from going out there and gaining that knowledge of what is going on. Ms. Mcgaughey indeed delivered a lecture that left students with the knowledge most of them did not have before. She gave students such knowledge and experience by allowing her own personal experiences to shine through them. The years of experience Mcgaughey holds makes her a great mentor for students to look at going into the Journalism profession.  She provided knowledge and experiences as she started off and walked us through her career success.