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ALVIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE 1ST Place - NEILL DIXON 2ND Place - LAURA TELLO 3RD Place - AMANDA TOLTON COURT REPORTING INSTITUTE OF HOUSTON 1ST Place - RENE GRAHAM 2ND Place - ANNA HARRIS 3RD Place - LAURA HOLCOMB By Neill Dixon As a student, my view of the professional world can only be gleaned from JCR articles and what my instructors have told me. Regurgitating these impressions would be like describing a city I have never seen but read about in a guide book. I have been in a courtroom once (as an observer) and never to a deposition. In films, court reporters are usually briefly glimpsed as droopy-eyed, straw-haired women, legs impossibly crossed, casually pressing a few buttons on an ancient machine. Advertisements for reporting software portray their opposites: sleek, young women (obviously models), staring importantly at a cityscape. Both of these images are absurd. In its essence, court reporting is an incredibly specific skill: the instantaneous and verbatim record of human speech, whether it be the questioning of a witness by a lawyer, a professor’s lecture for a deaf student, the unfolding events of a news story for the hearing impaired, or a Congressional debate. To this end, court reporters must do something that no machine can yet do: transcribe this very difficult and illogical language of ours, distinguish one homonym from another, filter out the sound of a cough or sneeze, and make sense of a foreign accent or a peculiar turn of phrase. To do this in today’s world of realtime, one must not only master the incredibly difficult skill of stenoing at 225-plus words a minute (please don’t let me know the attrition rate of court reporting students) but also gain complete mastery of the English language, compile a personal dictionary, learn a software, and somehow maintain a cool and professional demeanor. In view of all this, what draws me to the court reporting profession and what area in particular appeals to me? As a student, I enjoy the learning of a new, unique language and how it translates into physical skill. The process of hearing the spoken word, mentally translating that into steno, allowing the brain to then manipulate the fingers, reading the notes, and producing a neatly typed transcript is immensely satisfying (on the rare occasions when it all actually meshes; otherwise, frustration all too often rears its ugly head). Upon graduation, I feel the draw of the legal world. I would love to work as an official. I have always had a bit of the loner in me, uninterested in schmoozing my way up the career ladder. To be a “fly on the wall” of the controversial and often sordid affairs of the American legal system, an official keeper of the record of a new cast of characters and situations every working day seems a fantastic setting for a career. In short, I find the legal world fascinating, but I have no wish to dirty my hands with certain elements of it. I would get great satisfaction from being a witness to this process, yet still involved, charged with responsibility of maintaining the official record through the use of a very unique and specialized skill. (Back to Table of Contents) |