Video

Fundraising campaign celebrates Alec's birthday

Engineering students celebrate with their Patron Saint every year for his birthday, which falls on April Fools' Day. A tradition that started out as a prank and soon became a million dollar fundraising campaign. The Cockrell School of Engineering hands out free cake to all students who stop by. This year, students were given a chance to meet and speak with Alec, their saint, while learning more about giving back to their school. The birthday bash was put on by the Friends of Alec a fundraising organization that focuses on raising funds for the school to continue funding engineering education.

By Morgan Yarnik, Kiera Hess and Wynne Davis

I enjoyed producing this story with my fellow classmates, Kiera and Wynne. I feel like we split up a lot of the work and we all utilized our strengths in journalism to make this package worth watching. We had difficulty shooting the story because the party took place in the lobby of the engineering school, which is covered in windows. This made our colors blown out. We tried to color correct, but we will try better next time to conduct interviews away from bright areas. Also, I feel like we jumped into the story without giving viewers much background information. Overall, I feel like I have learned a lot from this project, especially how to work in a collaborative group.