My name is Rhys Heyden. I am a 21-year-old multimedia journalist and current staff writer at the San Luis Obispo New Times. My ultimate goal is to discover, delve into, and disseminate the world’s most compelling stories in the most creative and consequential way possible. Some highlights about me:
- I am a reluctant CO2 producer, D.F.W. devotee, avid geography & grammar promulgator, Unitarian Universalist, huge hypocrite, and obsessive fan of the San Francisco Giants and Green Bay Packers.
- Undergraduate studies at American University in Washington, D.C. (Aug. 2010 to May 2013), 3.88 GPA, Journalism Major, Minor in History, graduated Magna Cum Laude in three years.
- Studied abroad at the Danish Institute For Study Abroad, Copenhagen (Aug. – Dec. 2012), 3.81 GPA
- Recipient of American University Dean’s Scholarship; Named to School of Communication Dean’s List; Recipient of selective SOC Dean’s Internship.
- Recipient of the Academic Excellence Award for the Communication and Media Program, Fall 2012 at Danish Institute for Study Abroad.
- AP Scholar With Distinction (College Board).
- I made a mock homepage for myself in the Fall of 2011, available here, which I designed from scratch using HTML, CSS, and Adobe Dreamweaver.
- I manage my own website, which you are currently on, through WordPress and Bluehost, and became an expert in WordPress during a 2012 internship, where I helped my co-workers and a team of programmers design, test, polish, and, ultimately, launch Current‘s new website. I put in hundreds of hours of work on this site, between tweaking code, uploading archived stories, editing photos, and beta testing.
- I’ve written over 100 articles for roughly 15 publications over my time as a journalist, and almost all of them have been designed as online packages. I’ve worked with Zope, WordPress, Blogger, basic HTML/CSS, and other custom content management systems over my time as a journalist thus far. I understand how to write for the web and SEO, though I’m always eager to learn more and pick up new tricks.
- I’ve worked extensively with the Microsoft Office suite, and feel comfortable using Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and the like. I have some experience with Photoshop and InDesign, though I would not call myself an expert with those two.
- I am a social media enthusiast, actively using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for both personal and journalistic purposes. While at Current, I completely revamped and revitalized the publication’s Twitter and FB pages, increasing interactivity and instituting social media best policies; taking them from a combined 150 follows/likes to their current nearly 2,000 follows/likes.