Scott Hays had never planned on being a teacher.
Yet, for more than 20 years, Hays has been doing exactly that, serving as an instructor at Santiago Canyon College since 2017 and at multiple community colleges in Orange County since 2001.
“It’s a great campus,” Hays said. “It’s got a great staff. It’s got a great student body, and I really enjoy teaching there.”
With a master’s degree in communications and English literature, along with decades of experience in mass media as a print and broadcast journalist, a producer of television and radio programming, and video documentaries, Hays combines his real-world experience and education to teach a variety of subjects.
His teaching resume includes courses in journalism, critical thinking, mass communications and literature.
“And every semester is a different set of classes,” Hays said. “It keeps me engaged creatively and intellectually.”
This semester, Hays is teaching an English composition class and a critical thinking class at SCC.
After earning a master’s in communication from Cal State Fullerton, Hays plunged right in, first as a freelance journalist, writing for newspapers, magazines and books before transitioning to radio, television and video projection.
In 2007, he earned a master’s in English literature from UC Irvine.
Hays’s latest venture, and arguably most successful, has been the formation of OCWorld, an award-winning, nonprofit multimedia company that produces programming in and about Orange County.
As the only nonprofit multimedia firm in the county, OCWorld produces a weekly public affairs show that airs on KLCS-PBS and is broadcast to 15.5 million households from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
“We look for stories that aren’t being told,” Hays said. “We interview people that may not necessarily always have a voice.”
The OCWorld documentary “Hope Dies Last,” which focused on the impact of Alzheimer’s disease on California communities, was awarded a…
Read the full article here