On Saturday, Anthony Botkin will be a Wright State graduate at age 52 after reawakening his media career.
Botkin was a professional photographer for 30 years and he set out to find a new media career path in 2010 with the digital shift in the industry in full force.
Botkin thought over his options and remembered his previous work with the Fairborn Daily Herald and Beavercreek Daily News as a photojournalist. His passion for photojournalism would spark his decision to begin his pursuit of a mass communication degree at Wright State in 2011 at age 48.
“I saw newspapers going away and print magazines were starting to dry up and everybody was going to digital. I thought this is what I want to do,” Botkin said.
Returning to college has a new set of challenges brought on by getting older, according to Botkin.
“When you get to be older the brain becomes Teflon and nothing sticks. You have to keep going over to get things so that you can remember them."
Through his studies at WSU Botkin finds that COM 4710 courses that discuss special communication topics offer a beneficial hands on experience for communication students.
“The more hands on you have a class the more people will learn. They will learn through their natural abilities more or less because everybody learns differently.”
As an editor for the student WSU run DailyFlipz news website when it launched during the past fall semester, Botkin was able to gain expertise in how engage a reader on a page. It’s this engaging content that Botkin hopes to one day bring to electronic textbooks.
“I did a paper in a class where there was a study done about taking video and linking it with text. People remember a third more that way by having the video and the text there than if they had straight text or straight video.”
A photographer by heart, Botkin took his media talents and transitioned into writing when he was pushed by communication instructor Ray Marcano to improve it further. Botkin proved to have a knack for this as well by writing articles in the Dayton Daily News Neighbors section for a year and a half.
Through his work with Advanced News Writing instructor Ken Paxson, Botkin had the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of Dayton.com by getting hiring to contribute to building the site and writing articles for it. After he completes his internship for Dayton.com, Botkin will move on to become a reporter for the Springfield News Sun.
Botkin may be a little older than the average student that will take part in Saturday’s commencement ceremony, but that doesn’t mean he lacks their nerves.
“It’s been an interesting ride for four years. I’ve worked my butt off and now I’m scared to death about the next step just like everyone else.”
