满帆大学 course director Jeff Sharon has always had a keen interest in the people, 的地方, 以及他周围的事物.

“我想我一直都很好奇，”杰夫分享道. “I think curiosity is the number-one trait that anybody who works in the content business has to have.”

For 13 years, he has brought this curiosity to his students as an instructor in 满帆’s 新媒体新闻学硕士项目.

The University of Central Florida grad earned a bachelor’s in radio and TV with a broadcast journalism concentration. He then went on for a master’s in broadcast journalism from the Newhouse School of Public 通信 at Syracuse University.

“Growing up, I was always a ‘TV kid’ and later really got interested in sports TV,” Jeff explains. “I caught the bug and realized this is what I wanted to do.”

作为一名本科生, Jeff got involved with the UCF student radio station and eventually became its sports director, assisting with live broadcasts of athletic events on campus and on the road in other states. He and his crew helped the station start streaming events online in the early days of this technology. He later interned with Central Florida 新闻 13 (now Spectrum 新闻 13) before becoming a full-time sports reporter and eventually sports director of WNEG-TV (now WUGA) in Toccoa, 乔治亚州.

“I was able to get over the hill of anxiety over talking on television without a script,” he recalls. “我真的很享受……那一点点, 小镇电视台之类的东西, 你要学会扮演各种角色, 我完成了我的.”

A job opened up as a video producer and host for UCF’s athletic department, 所以他搬回了阳光之州. He has since gone on to become the public address announcer for UCF football and men’s basketball games.

“在男篮比赛中，我坐在中锋, 前排, I get paid to sit there and scream into a microphone,他说. “竞技场里的其他人都是花钱尖叫的. 多酷的工作啊. 我每次都得掐自己.”

He has had opportunities to announce at Orlando Magic games as well. 此外，Jeff创立了 黑色的 & 黄金小旗 in 2015, a website focused on covering UCF athletics. The site was later acquired by SB Nation, which is owned by Vox 媒体.

至于全速航行, 是帕特·毕晓普, 前研究生院院长, who encouraged him to throw his hat in the ring for a faculty position after he initially applied for a different role.

“我永远感激她. 我知道她现在退休了, but I'm really thankful to her every day for that singular act of kindness,他说.

He began teaching for 满帆 in 2011 when the university launched the 新媒体新闻学硕士项目, allowing him to lend a hand in the development of the curriculum. He has taught half of the classes in the graduate program, including 新媒体出版与发行, 多媒体开发与编辑, 数字新闻制作.

“There are a lot of similarities between what I learned in my master’s program at Syracuse and what I’ve tried to apply to our program at 满帆,他说. “We do a really good job of getting students up to speed on the level of rigor required for journalists in 2024.”

据杰夫说, it’s critical to possess a wide range of skills working in news media today, from photography to videography to 搜索 engine optimization (SEO) to web design. He enjoys teaching courses on these skills to a diverse group of students.

“我喜欢教书，因为我喜欢新闻. I get to see a little snippet of what's going on in different 的地方 throughout the country because our students are all [over], 他们中的一些人也在国外. 这是最酷的事情，”他分享道.

And what does he find to be the most rewarding part of teaching?

“学生们回到我身边, 他们就像, “人, 我们在这门课上很努力, 但能走出自己的舒适区真是太酷了, 我学到了很多. And I got out there in my community and I talked to a bunch of different people that I never would've talked to otherwise.’ And I'm like, ‘That's the bottom line of what we're doing. We're trying to get you to see that there's a big world out there, 总得有人告诉大家这件事, 也可能是你.’"