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Look at Kastenson's last story she wrote for UW- Eau Claire's Spectator.

View The National Survey of Civic and Political Engagement of Young People's findings.

Family, future plans influence student's amibition

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From the time she learned long division to when she wrote for Sturgeon Bay area Sevestopol High School’s newspaper, the Pioneer Chips, Dana Kastenson knew writing would be in her future.

She remembers third grade as the exact moment she wanted to write as a career.

That’s when “I started getting an interest,” Kastenson said. Her hand would shoot up to help contribute to her school’s newsletter. In between class time and helping with the newsletters, Kastenson began to explore the artistic side of writing.
           

“Like a lot of people,” the UW-Eau Claire junior said, “I wanted to author a book.”
           

Kastenson’s younger brother, Lon, recalled how she would read books cover to cover.

“She liked to read books,” he said. “She really liked to write.”

Kastenson had aspirations of being on the New York Times’ Bestseller’s list. But “the stories I’d write were parodies of TV shows,” she explained.  Instead of risking plagiarism lawsuits, Kastenson sought out a different path to writing.

“I decided, well, maybe newspaper writing,” she said. “I took that career and ran with it.”

Kastenson served as editor for the Pioneer Chips her senior year of high school and left with knowledge of how newspaper writing is done.

“That’s where I learned the craft,” she said, learning to use “said” and “stated” instead of “explained” or “described.”

Now as a college student, Kastenson uses what she learned as she servers as webmaster for the UWEC branch for Delta Zeta. She also is web intern for the College of Business (COB) where she writes articles for their newsletters.

Kastenson said she is excited for the classes she takes now as a Print Journalism major -- specifically Public Affairs Reporting as it is a subject she hasn’t covered during her high school years or as Copy Editor for UW- Eau Claire’s newspaper, The Spectator.

“I’ve never really had experience (of reporting on public affairs),” she said, stating what she writes for the COB are more like public relations articles.

Kastenson, though, is no stranger to politics and public affairs. Her parents exposed her to the political field at a young age and she counts her mother as an influential person in who she is today.

“(My mom) shaped my thoughts on public affairs,” she said. “I think because I pretty much grew up with my mom.”

Kastenson’s parents “are mostly Republican,” Lon Kastenson said, “based on the way they vote and some of the things they say.”

Kastenson’s mother, Paula, grew up in a housing project in Milwaukee up until the age of five. This, Kastenson said, has given her mother a “strong conviction that you have to work hard for what you want.”

“She’s an opinionated person,” Kastenson said of her mother. “Most of the time she thinks conservatively.

Kastenson’s father, Eugene Kastenson believes what they discussed during past elections has weighed greatly on Kastenson’s political thought process.

“I don’t know everything about her,” he said. “But what you discuss with your family is highly influential” to their decision making.

Before college, Kastenson leaned more to the right politically like her parents, she said.

“I was conservative, very conservative,” she said.

 But upon coming to UW- Eau Claire, Kastenson opened her mind to new things, she said. She saw different things and began “picking and choosing what my convictions were.”

Kastenson voted in the 2006 mid-term elections along with 24% of the eligible population of people ages 18-24, according to the The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE). They comprised their information from exit polls throughout the country.

Kastenson said she does not vote among party lines but rather looks for who she believes is the best candidate for the job.

Kastenson felt strongly in the 2006 elections to abstain from voting for or against Civil Unions for gay, lesbian and straight couples in the state of Wisconsin.

Marriage and the concept of that idea are personal and broad in translation among groups, she said. She felt the government had no right to even suggest regulating such a personal matter.

“To be moderate, I didn’t think we should be voting on something like that,” she said.
While the voter turnout for the 2006 elections was low, new studies have shown college students actually know more about who is in office than who won Dancing with the Stars.
          

The “National Survey of Civic and Political Engagement of Young People” through Tufts University found 50% of college students polled knew who represented their area in Congress, and 65% knew one or both of the Senators for their state as opposed to only 13% who could identify the winner of “American Idol”.

The February 2007 findings contrasted with the notion “of young people as uninterested in and ignorant about politics and government,” said project director Kent E. Portney, professor of Political Sciences at Tufts University in a statement.

Kastenson, a Green Bay native, correctly identified Steve Kagen as her districts representative to Congress and also Wisconsin’s two senators, Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl. She could not identify who won “American Idol.”

“I could care less,” she said. “I’ve never watched that show. I’ve only watched parodies of it.”

Kastenson herself is proud of the fact she tries to stay current on things happening in her hometown of Sturgeon Bay and around the country.
           

“I try to get as many diverse sources as possible,” she said, citing Yahoo!News, Msn.com, the Leader-Telegram, Green Bay Press Gazette, the Door County Advocate and also the Spectator as her suppliers of information.
           

Eugene Kastenson isn’t surprised at how many sources of current affairs his daughter reads.
 

“She’s impassioned about learning about outside the campus,” he said. “Local and national politics is frequent for everyone.”
           

Kastenson hopes to turn her journalism degree into a career as a copy editor or online editor and then return back to school to obtain her masters and teach journalism to new, eager students.
           

According to Kastenson, journalism today means sensationalizing stories that are too big to begin with and the stories they should be focusing on are not given the amount of coverage they need. Kastenson hopes her future job will help her obtain the knowledge she needs to teach a new generation.
           

“I want to know what the ethics are,” she said. “I would like to give an impression on future journalists on what real journalism is.”