Chronicles of a Court Reporting Intern - Part 1

I have decided to do a small series of re-occurring posts chronicling some of my internship experiences. A recent essay requirement for school prompted me to simply segment these very thoughts out into a few blog posts. Obviously, many of these experiences and thoughts are backdated, but I hope you enjoy my ramblings all the same.

At the start of my internship, I found myself pretty unsure of what path I specifically wanted to pursue when it came to the world of court reporting. I have always been a little baffled that many of my peers seem to have a really strong idea of the direction they want to go in professionally, yet I just can't seem to pin down what it is that I want to do. Why is it I can't seem to make up my mind about what interests me most? I am prone to be somewhat indecisive, but seriously, how can I be this far along, and still have no clue? Too many options I tell you. Ironically, the variety of options is precisely one of the reasons that enticed me into the court reporting profession to begin with. Sure, I admit it. I was drawn in by the lure of flexible hours, the ability to work from home, and the promise of high pay. But I was equally drawn in by the variety of options available.

More often than not, when you tell people you are in school for court reporting they immediately think of "that person in the courtroom that types on that funny little machine." True, technically you could say that, and it is indeed one of the options you have once you have mastered the skill. Although, I'll be the first to tell you, it is a little more involved than that. It is, also, slightly annoying when people word it that way. It makes it sound so easy, yet if it were truly this easy, why, I ask, does court reporting have a 95% failure rate?! (I digress) In addition to being an official reporter, you also can be a CART provider, a broadcast captioner, or work as a freelance reporter. Upon enrolling in school, I had no clue what path really interested me most, but I was confident of one thing…it wasn’t the world of officialship.

As a random side note…I find it funny that the admissions department was quick to talk about all the various areas in which I could work, however, they failed to leave out all the little, nitty-gritty details about how much work, time, and dedication would really be necessary to advance to that magical speed of 225. Of course, had they told me that, I may have backed out right then and there, so it's probably best they didn’t take that route. I never consider myself to be the very driven type growing up. Thankfully, that is a trait I feel for the most part I have left behind. (Most likely, because I have found something that interests me and I am passionate about.) But I best get back on track. I feel a rabbit trail around the corner if I’m not careful.

Back to my thoughts on officialships. For some reason, since day one, I have had it stuck in my brain that I have zero desire to be an official reporter. The idea of going to court every day, and hearing all the crazy things that people have done seemed pretty undesirable, and I felt like it would just callous me in some weird way. Yes, you do hear a lot of crap. There are definitely some weird people out there that do some weird things. I have already found myself slightly desensitized and I'm not even working yet. But that's neither here nor there. I'm not quite sure whether it just seemed uninteresting to me, or intimidating, but nonetheless, these were my feelings and thoughts at the start of my internship. Funny how you make up some of these ideas based solely on your own preconceived notions. As a result of these preconceived ideas, I figured I would simply do a few court hours just for the sake of fulfilling a requirement but I already knew that it just wasn't for me. You can imagine how surprised I was to find that after spending much time interning, my thoughts about this have drastically changed. I won't get ahead of myself just yet, though. I will let you journey with me through my thought processes and experiences that led to this profound change of heart.

Lesson learned: Allowing preconceived notions dictate your destiny will only lock the doorway to opportunity.