I think that one of the hardest things that I’ve run into when writing and researching my topics would be contacting people. More specifically, contacting people from a big organization who do not want to speak to someone who’s just an undergrad student. It was definitely harder to get information from establishments once they asked who I was writing for. If it wasn’t the NY Times or some other large entity, they would just give me a poor response to just get me to leave them alone. Other than that, it was definitely hard to find a mutually convenient time for both parties to meet or talk. Most of the times they were available I had class, and when I was available they were closed which was a tad infuriating. There’s nothing I could do but continue trying.

I write for an online tech magazine so I constantly have to contact large companies for information or review units. They tend to ignore my emails and calls but I still contact them weekly until I get a human response. Its not easy but once I have established a PR contact, things tend to go more smoothly. I think this is relavant to finding sources to talk to for our articles since perseverance goes a long way. But then again they can always decline.