Student starting out

[Amanda Rogers]

Does anyone have tips, suggestions, comments, or stories about court reporting? I am looking into reporting and wanting to be the best educated I can be before starting classes in Januray.

[Glen Warner]

Hi, Jaime.

The "fantastic new program" Peppina was talking about was most likely the Total Immersion program. It was a pilot program to see if a program could be developed that could get a student to graduating speeds in one year. Check the 13AUG09 update and the Total Immersion Update 2 link on my site.

Hope that helps ...!

--gdw
------------------------
"For a Good (steno) Time ...."
http://www.cheapandsleazy.net

[Jaime Stepp]

Thanks so much GDW...Glad to find your site, as it's all new to me!

Ty, jaime

[Heather]

Good luck in school, I think you'll be happy with your decision! I just passed my qualifier and am waiting for the February state test, so here's my thoughts about what I did/should have done in school. By the way, it took me 2yr 7mo to finish school, but I also took off six months to have a baby.. so just over two years actually IN school. I've watched other girls finish school in two years and even one that did it in 18 months and those girls were at school every day working on their machine all day.

Write as clean and perfect as you can from the very beginning. I know from personal experience that focusing on speed too much from the beginning doesn't pay off in the end. Get clean first and you'll have a lot less headache in higher speeds. This is where the realtime machine and software comes in handy. If your theory has dictation that goes with each chapter, make sure you work on those a lot after doing the chapter. Watch your translation as you're writing and make yourself retype any misstrokes, even if it means you drop a whole bunch. At my school a lot of students skip the dictation and only focus on the written chapters, and then they're overwhelmed when they get to speed class. You have to get used to hearing the words AND making your fingers stroke them out.

As for briefs, I personally think that you should learn the phrases that you'll hear every day early on. Examples would be, "I could, this is, you would, and I have, that I want" and all the others that are in those families. The "family" phrases are the easiest to learn and will really save you in a rough section of a test. What I mean by families is phrases like, "I could, you could, we could, he could, she could." Another family example would be, "that I could, that I should, that I want, that I have, that I had." I hope that doesn't sound confusing, and if I did just hang on until you get to there, because it will make sense. Save learning word briefs until you get into speed class ,and then focus on words that you hear every day that always slow you down.

And lastly, focus, focus, focus. It takes a lot of dedication to get through school, and it's constant frustration. You'll spend months in a class trying to pass a test, and when you finally do pass out of a speed level, you start all over being frustrated in the next one. If you only go to school half of the time, it will take way more than twice as long to get out. Don't let less dedicated people distract you and keep you off your machine. Also, I recommend practicing off CDs instead of tapes, because I've found it's way too easy to decide it's break time while you're waiting for that tape to rewind. I put 3-5 five-minute takes on my laptop's play list and just let them loop. Don't stop until your fingers or your brain get tired, because stamina is just as important as speed.

Hope that wasn't too random! Good luck!

Heather

[Mary Jo Cochran]

Don't let the negative people bring you down and there will be plenty. (for sure)

Also, don't let your "friends" knock you down. People get jelous, envious, don't want you to be any better than them. They will say things to make you question or doubt yourself. It may across as a bit of ribbing ("Oh, that's all you do is practice"); or ("Just find a man") or - hey, let's get straight to the real nasty remarks ("You think you're better than everyone else").

You will hear remarks said in jest, but are really intended to knock you down and keep you in place.

[Julie Guvernator]

Hi Amanda,

I started court reporting school this last April. I'm currently working on my 100 wpm speed. To begin with, eat breakfast. I was shocked at how much energy your brain uses learning this new "language." I would find my blood sugar drop during the third hour of morning class, even when I did eat breakfast, and I wouldn't be able to concentrate until after lunch. Second, practice writing relaxed. My biggest obstacle now that I'm in speeds is getting myself to relax when the instructor says "Okay - this is our first 100 test. Ready, begin . . ." I can't give you any advice on "how" to do this except to say be conscious of your muscles tensing and stop and take some deep breaths before you go on. Finally, shortcutting anything will catch up with you eventually. Better to learn your lessons thoroughly now than to have to retrace your steps later.

Having said all this, court reporting school and writing steno is fun. You'll find times when you go into a "zone" and write with a certain rhythm, hardly having to think about what you're writing, and it's a blast! Getting into that zone is what gives you the impetus to get through the difficult times (because there are also days when you feel like you can't write for squat. It's apparently just part of the process).

Enjoy school. I worked with a lot of court reporters before starting school and it really is a highly-respected profession. I can't wait to get there!

Julie

[Cathryn Bauer]

Many good points to take to heart in this thread. A few I would add:

This is a profession for self-starters. When things are slow (like right now in the SF Bay Area), you need to have your resume ready to send to new agencies to create some job prospects for yourself. When I was at a convention earlier this year, my husband had a conversation with another reporter who was so discouraged that she was considering leaving the field. Turns out she flatly refused to apply to do pro tem (temporary, on-call) work at courthouses and had not sent out a single resume since things had begun to slow down! That is NOT the spirit.

The same applies to your education -- not just in school, but in the continuing education that is essential to being a reporter. You need to never stop learning, but don't wait for the knowledge to come to you. Seek it out on your own. When I decided I wanted to be a CART provider, I Googled CART, deafness, Deaf culture, and spent many hours reading and preparing myself for my first CART job. An astonishing number of reporters and students wrote me, "Tell me about CART." Ridiculous. You need to look for what you want to know on your own and make it happen for yourself.

Literacy is essential. You should be reading a book all the time, and I'm not talking about Danielle Steele. You need to learn something from everything you read. If you read a quality daily newspaper and Consumer Reports every month, you will pick up a great deal of general knowledge which will come in handy when you have to take written knowledge tests.

You need to treat school as if it is a full-time job. Take it as seriously and give it the same attendance and focus as you would a job. "Go to school every day" is excellent advice. I would add to that, "And be fully present." I have seen court reporting students spend entire school days in the break room and cut class to spend time in fast-food restaurants or go shopping. I have also seen them propping their steno machine and cases up so that the instructor couldn't see that they were reading magazines instead of writing in class. You need to be paying attention all through the class. Yes, it's tiring, but you won't build your stamina if you flake out like that.

Get in the habit NOW of being always on time and always well-organized. Getting out the door in the morning is a project for a reporter of any persuasion. There are many essential pieces to our job, and we have to cover them all. If you arrive at school without pens or an essential power cable, resist any temptation to shrug it off with some comment like, "Everyone makes mistakes." Instead, acknowledge that you couldn't get away with that on the job and think about how you will avoid that in future, for example, having a checklist of equipment that you need for school (a friend of mine did this when she was first reporting) or packing up the night before when you are able to think about what you need without time pressure.

This is an important, responsible job. The transcript is an essential tool for the justice-making process. I cannot sufficiently emphasize the importance of this.

Hope this helps.

[Jaime Stepp]

Cathryn,
Thank you so much! I am a self started so that is a good thing.

It is truely shocking about how alot of people want things simply handed to them in life. Hence the situation with the lady your husband was speaking to. Sounds like a big lack of ambition. It's too bad.

I also fully agree with you on researching. Just alike anything in life. Honestly before this, I was going to go into a totally different field. (More for the $ that really did not fit my personality, deep down I knew this) The more I researched, this is 100% more my type of career. It is amazing to me how many stories I hear of people going to schools that were not accredited and then wondering why they can't find jobs. (not particularly in this particular field, but many others) It stumps me that people just do not do their research about their future.

As for my reading, I am so thankful for the tip. I tend to read things of my intrest and often feel news magazines etc. are full of negativity that I try to stay away. I will definatly be taking your advice on this.

Thank you for the advice on school. I am full of ambition but, was considering working during the day and going to school at night. (due to financial reasons) I think we all know we are all better at retaining during the day and I'm now considering school during the day instead of night. (your thoughts on this? Or do you think I would be ok attending school at night?)

As far as running late, I will be practicing that now. I am a very organized person but, at times have been known to run late. I can't even imagine having the stress of running late for this job!

I will be moving back to southern Cal as soon as I finish school. I am currently in south Fl, Cali state test states I have to study here for 1 year. This deeply saddens me but, where there's a will there's a way. School here states that it's 30 moths but, from what I am reading that can go either way.

I just want to get back to California as a court reporter! :) Thanks again and any further, future tips are greatly appreciated!

Take Care! Jaime

[Carrie Dio]

Hi Amanda!

You have made such an awesome field to enter into! I'm still a student, I have one more semester and I graduate in May, and lemme tell you the journey is a hard one but well worth it. My journey is probably a little more harder than others...I'm an older student, newly divorced, a 3 1/2 y/o and 1 1/2 y/o, living with my parents. Now I'm not telling you this for sympathy...I'm telling you this because with all the crap that I have been through in the 2 years and am still being successful in my classes...Anyone can do it! However, there is a catch here: You have to have the drive, determination, willingness to dive in, get your hands dirty, and want it! You have to want to practice; you have to want to learn the briefs; you have to learn to laugh at your mistakes....otherwise, you will go crazy(this is also all from experience).

This field has so many options available. For me one of the major perks was the flexibility that comes along with the job...Being a single mom, I want to go on the field trips and be able to stay home with them if they are sick...Also the pay is pretty decent if you're willing to work, willing to stretch yourself in assignments that noone else wants.

The other piece of advice I would give you that I just learned a few weeks ago is this: Learn to write what you HEAR! If you are constantly stumbling every time a word or phrase pops up becasue you know this brief, it's right at the tips of your fingers, but you still can't get it and you're dropping quite a bit, you will always do this. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE BRIEFS...I'M the Queen of briefs! But lately, there just have been some where my mind cannot remember it for some odd reason. Instead of letting that brief get to me, and lose quite a bit after that, I just write it out. More often than not, after you write out a multisyllabic word, there will be a brief that can be used for a 2-3 word phrase, and you can catch up.

But above all else, HAVE FUN! LAUGH!

~~~carrie

[Mary Jo Cochran]

I think the hardest thing about getting into the court reporting program is the MINDSET!!! Sure, you hear about the program, you read what is necessary. So what. After all, it's just school, and school has requirements!!! (yeah).

You register, get your machine, theory books, WOW, EXCITING. Start theory. Make it through theory. Can make small sentences, "The cat ran fast." THEN actually speed building. This is where you become a guru or a dropout. Gurus have mindsets. They focus, they're determined, they have a mission. They do a lot of sole searching ("Can I do this? Is this what God wants for me? Do I have the determination to do this? Wow!!, I have rhythm. It lasted a whole two minutes!!) You get the idea. The dropouts say: "Wow, this isn't what I was expecting. This is different. This is hard. I can't do this. I can't learn how to do it." I watched week by week for the students to drop out. You get the idea.

I made the decision I was not going to be one of those dropouts. I was determined. I got focus. I got rythm - whether it be for two minutes or a string or four words together.

My main suggestion: Have a mission. It should be to persevere. You are not there to socialize and make a lot of friends. Do not get caught up in that. Make the program your mission.