Student Blog: Happy Spring Semester from WVU!

Hey, Broadway World! My name is Riley Moore and I am double majoring in Journalism and Theatre at West Virginia University. To my knowledge, I am the first person from my university to publish an article here, so I feel very grateful to have been given this opportunity! This semester has gotten off to a rough start, as we are still recovering from Winter Storm Fern around here. As an Appalachian, I am well-aquainted with this kind of weather, but as you can see by this lovely photo of myself on the left, I am not a huge fan of the cold.

Despite the craziness of the weather, my semester has been going great so far! I am taking 16 credits and am involved in several extracurriculars and part-time jobs. I am taking a class that is brand-new to the university this semester: Voice Skills for Performance. The class is made up of a mix of media students and theatre students, so it is right up my alley. We utilize our campus's podcasting studio to learn about how the voice works and to work on vocal techniques. I am also taking Political Science and Media Law & Ethics for my journalism degree and Theatre Text Analysis for my theatre degree. On Saturday mornings, I teach and create the curriculum for WVU's recently-revived Youth Acting Academy at WVU's Canady Creative Arts Center. I teach my first class this coming Saturday and I'm so excited!

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Working for the School Newspaper

I recently decided to delve deeper into something I love: live interviewing. For the past three semesters, I've seen The Daily Athenauem, WVU's school newspaper, everywhere on campus, but I was always apprehensive to join and put myself out there. I started to watch their video content more and more and started to ponder some ideas for videos. I finally decided to apply, and after a meeting with the student who is the head of video production, I was hired! The very next week, we had a video production crew meeting to pitch and discuss video ideas to be filmed in the coming days. I pitched the idea of doing acts of kindness at our student union, The Mountainlair, as a Valentine's Day-themed video. I also inquired about filming a sort of game show where the host tries to guess students' majors in 30 seconds or less. The staff loved both ideas and picked me to be the host of the game show. Two days later, we went to the Mountainlair and spent a couple hours filming both videos. I have since edited all of the footage myself and the videos will be posted soon. The DA welcomed me with open arms and put their trust in me and I immediately jumped in as a valuable team member. I'm very proud of myself for taking a chance on something new and being committed to it!

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WVU's Newest Guest Speaker

During the very first week of the semester, I was approached with the opportunity to be a guest speaker and represent WVU at an Honors student recruiting event called Distinguished Scholars. After much deliberation, I decided to focus my speech on the time the university awarded me the Neil S. Bucklew Scholarship as a senior in high school and how that showed me that the university truly cares about all different types of students. I was the only student in the College of Creative Arts and Media to receive this prestigious scholarship, alongside future doctors, engineers, and neuroscientists. When a college truly values the arts like mine does, I will always be more than happy to speak on their behalf. I am pleased to say that I have been invited back to speak at future events as well!

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I could not be more excited for what is to come in 2026. It's hard to believe that come May, I will already be halfway done with my time here at WVU. Thank you again to Broadway World for this fantastic opportunity to share my voice and represent my university on such a large platform. Let's Go Mountaineers!