Pepperdine’s co-curriculars help students apply their learning

Pepperdine Graphic Media Managing Editor Bria Dunlap, Assistant News Editor Duncan Hilby and Executive Editor Cassandra Stephenson edit the weekly newspaper (Photo by Jonathan Cottrill).

Co-curriculars help students gain real-world experience and improve their classroom performance.

Pepperdine’s co-curriculars are activities that help students practice major-specific skills, like reporting for journalism majors or performing for theater students. Some majors mandate participation to help students understand the concepts taught in class at a deeper level in an applicable life setting.

“With student publications you get a lot of experience outside of the classroom,” senior journalism major Chad Jimenez said. “I’ve met alumni in the industry and it helped me network and see what they’ve done after graduation. Some of us got to go to New York and meet journalists at CNN and Time Magazine.”

Students involve themselves in co-curriculars to further their learning but sometimes face a heavy time commitment. Faculty and students weigh in on how co-curriculars help and sometimes hinder students.  

Why they’re important

Majors such as journalism, media production, theater, advertising, public relations, English and liberal arts require students to participate in co-curriculars as part of their courses or degree requirements, according to the course catalog.

Other majors such as the pre-law, teaching, humanities and Asian studies offer co-curriculars but don’t require them.

Many divisions further offer students research opportunities through the academic year and summer sessions that help them advance their careers. For instance, the Natural Science Division doesn’t have co-curriculars per-se but they do offer students hands-on experiences through research.  

“The student who have worked with me over the summer, they learn something they may not quite get in class,” Mathematics Professor Timothy Lucas said. “They get to learn new skills or a new piece of math that maybe they haven’t learned in their class yet.”

Professors supervise co-curriculars to help students apply what they’re learning in the classroom in a real-world setting, Communication Division Dean Sarah Stone Watt said.

Stone Watt previously advised the debate team. Her favorite part of being involved with co-curriculars was watching students come up with their own ideas and test them.

“We had in debate one year a student who was trying to work through arguments of identity,” Stone Watt said. “Debate gave him the ability to test those ideas in a space where you’re supposed to argue.”

Many students see the benefits of co-curriculars. A Pepp Post poll of 70 students showed that approximately 64 percent are involved in at least one co-curricular.

Communication Professor Elizabeth Smith advises Pepperdine Graphic Media, a co-curricular that includes The Graphic, Currents, G News and special publications.

PGM’s main goal is to train journalism students but all students are welcome to work on staff.

Smith said she believes that students who go above and beyond in their co-curriculars are the ones who are most successful in their majors. Journalism requires two semesters on one of the co-curriculars, either PGM or NewsWaves, the live television news show.

Smith said she sees a major difference between students who do only the two semesters and students who are involved all the way through their Pepperdine careers.

“Bare min students show that journalism isn’t what they’re passionate about,” Smith said.

Smith believes co-curriculars are a good way to give students a broader understanding of their major so they can understand what they want to do.

These co-curriculars offer opportunities that can’t be offered in the classroom setting, students and professors said.

Cassandra Stephenson, a senior journalism major and executive editor for The Graphic, said PGM has helped her get outside writing opportunities.

“The experience I’ve gained here is the reason I’ve had the opportunity to do freelance because if you have no experience no one will hire you,” Stephenson said.

Cheyenne Gibson, senior theater production and design major, said she believes co-curriculars are crucial to an education.

“Oh it’s instrumental,” Gibson said, “if we don’t put productions on, it’s all hypothetical.”

Most co-curriculars are open to all students, not just those in the major. Madi Stewart, a first-year communication major, said she learned a lot working on NewsWaves even though it wasn’t directly related to her major.

“It forced me to put into practice some of the things I learned in class,” Stewart said, “I think I’m better off now that I did it. I can talk to strangers now.”

Sarah Arthur, a junior film studies major, hasn’t participated in co-curriculars, but she did participate in the related Reel Stories Film Fest. Reel Stories is an extracurricular film festival that allows both film and non-film students to practice their skills in movie making and end the project with a big showcase of their films.

“I thought it was great because it directly related to what we were learning in class and it gave more meaning to what we were learning,” Arthur said.

This outside-the-classroom experience in co-curriculars can surpass to 20-plus hours per week, the poll found.

Jimenez is accustomed to these hours due to the fact that he participates in the Graphic, Currents and NewsWaves at Pepperdine.

Theater students can spend 24 hours in rehearsal per week.

“It’s not for everyone because it’s a hard schedule,” first-year theater major Clayton Mattingly said, “but it’s needed because it helps you with your major 100 percent.”

How they affect students in the classroom

Co-curriculars aim to complement what students are learning in their classes.

“It’s an excellent opportunity to take what you learn in the classroom and apply it,” Stephenson said. “Because of my co-curricular I haven’t had a very hard time in my journalism classes.”

Many students appreciate how co-curriculars allow them to have a real-world view of their major and make their classwork more meaningful.

“I think theater has a good connection to the real world and has a great connection to reality,” Mattingly said.

Mattingly isn’t the only theater major who believes they benefit from their co-curricular.

“It’s given me a lot of skills through a more hands-on practical way,” said Sarah Barney, a senior theater arts and political science major.  “It makes co-curriculars more real, they mimic how the real world is run.”

Other students agreed with Mattingly and Barney but found the workload sometimes hard to manage.

“My co-curricular definitely benefited my grade but it can get stressful with all the work,” Jimenez said. “The experience of writing an article helps me write the articles I need for class.”

Gibson expressed how her co-curricular took time away from her schedule to do homework.

“I would go to rehearsal and then I’d be up late and getting a lack of sleep,” Gibson said, “It’s tough, I specifically have learned to make my schedule light.”

Charlotte Lang, a first-year political science major and member of the Waves Debate team,  expressed similar concern when it comes to balancing school and co-curriculars.

“It takes a lot of time away from the time I should be studying,” Lang said. “I haven’t gotten a bad grade because of it but it’s not an ideal schedule.”

Lang joined Waves Debate team even though it wasn’t mandatory for her major.

“I can see how it helps me in the classroom,” Lang said.

How mandatory co-curriculars affect students

With all the benefits of co-curriculars, the Pepperdine community still holds mixed opinions on whether they should be mandatory or not, even in programs like theater where participating is a mandatory part of the program.

“To make it required may take the joy out of it and may not build you up but pull you down,” Cathy Thomas-Grant, divisional dean of Fine Arts said. “Theater students juggle a lot, 18 units, load ins and strike, I think that needs to be a choice.”

Thomas-Grant definitely sees benefits to having co-curriculars.

Theater students cleaning the stage before the production of Medea (Photo by Jonathan Cottrill).

“I think it builds a sense of community,” Thomas-Grant said. “You’re a small part of a huge process that it takes to make a play.”

Thomas-Grant said being involved in both co-curriculars and the classroom makes the best student.

“All of what we teach in the classroom is applied to the stage,” Thomas-Grant said, “They feed each other.”

Some students don’t like the idea of mandatory co-curriculars either.

“I personally don’t like it,” Lang said. “It doesn’t seem like it makes a good environment if you make it seem like classwork.”

Other faculty members see the benefits of making co-curriculars mandatory.

“Yes, absolutely,” Smith said, “it’s the place where the classroom meets the real world.”

Faculty in divisions that don’t offer co-curriculars see benefits to students gaining experience outside the classroom, such as when they present their research at a conference.

“I see other benefits that are outside of just the classroom in terms of their career goals,” Lucas said. “They have the skill to communicate technical things to audiences that may not be as skilled in that field.”

The downside of co-curriculars is that they require outside work and this can interfere with student’s schedules.

The poll showed that roughly 47 percent of students spend 15 or more hours on just their schoolwork outside of class.

With all this time spent on schoolwork, it can be difficult for students to participate in other clubs and activities such as co-curriculars.

Stewart had to drop NewsWaves because she didn’t have enough time to incorporate it into her schedule with school and other activities like church.

Stone Watt thinks Pepperdine students should select one major activity and not overextend themselves.

“I wish Pepperdine students would focus their energy on one thing,” Stone Watt said, “When they’re doing it well their outside activities work with their classroom.”

Students like Stephenson understand how to focus their energy.

“I pride myself on time management,” Stephenson said. “I put my full effort into everything and I think my grade shows that. I was like finally sitting down after a long day and relaxing with a bowl of ice cream, and breaking news happened and I just left my ice cream on the table to melt.”

Jonathan Cottrill completed the reporting for this story under the supervision of Dr. Christina Littlefield and Dr. Theresa de los Santos in Jour 241 in spring 2018. Dr. Littlefield supervised the web story.