.:Simplicity:.

Freshman year I took a psychology class. I had studied psychology before and absolutely loved it. It was fascinating the way people reacted to situations, and how sometimes thought processes could be manipulated in a way that someone could control. I always thought those kinds of people had super powers, or that they belonged in Inception, so psychology was obviously something I wanted to learn more about. I was excited to start a brand new semester at BYU, and excited for my psychology class. Until about 3 weeks into the semester.

This professor, ahem, DOCTOR (I suppose if you went to that much schooling, you deserve a title) was more concerned about showing off his scholarly language than he was about helping his students pass. The required text was a good three years beyond anything anyone in a level 100 class had learned (Except for two or three geniuses. There are ALWAYS two or three geniuses in every class…) and TAs were hired at random. Struggling with difficult language, and unhelpful TAs throughout that semester, I learned a solid lesson: If you want to relate to people, and have them understand you, simplicity is the key.

The whole point of journalism is informing the masses. In order for the masses to understand cholesterol levels in arctic fish versus tropical fish, some simple language has to be used. Granted, no one is really going to need to know that tropical fish have more cholesterol unless there is a sudden epidemic involving heart attacks linked with seafood, but the point still stands! The WHY of the world is how we learn, and learning is only possible when the explanation is easily understood. Society needs more people who are willing to simplify life. Kudos to those brave souls.