Since middle school, I have known that writing is what I love to do. In seventh grade, my English teacher would leave glowing comments on my essays. By sophomore year of high school, I was in Honors English- writing creative stories, opinion pieces, personal essays. It was my senior year when I decided to take a journalism class.

I started learning how to write news articles, rather than just papers for classes. I began interviewing athletes and school authorities, making promotional videos, producing articles, editing my school newspaper and anchoring morning newscasts. And my talent was recognized. I was encouraged by my English and journalism teachers to pursue it for the rest of my life. They would say, "I can totally see you on the nightly news!" or "You would be an awesome investigative reporter!"

I can't pinpoint the exact moment when I decided that I wanted to major in journalism, but I do know that it is what I am meant to do.

Now that I'm in college, working towards a degree in journalism, I've come across an issue.

My least favorite thing to hear is that journalism is a "dying field." My least favorite thing to be asked is "How are you going to get a job with that degree?" You don't even understand how discouraging those things are to hear when you are so passionate about what you're studying.

My question is: how is journalism a dying field? How does something so important and imperative to educating and informing society just...die?

I think the majority of the logic behind this comes from the idea that newspapers are going out of style. I know that not a lot of people want to sit down with a cup of coffee, scan the columns and columns of tiny print and sketch in the crossword puzzles.

I get that. I may write articles but that doesn't mean I absolutely love to read them. But, it breaks my heart when I'm reminded that my name may never be printed in a big- time newspaper in the byline. My dream of reporting on camera for Fox or NBC gets crushed a little more every time someone's questions why I'm going to school for journalism.

In my opinion, journalism is not dying. It's changing. Newspapers may have morphed into online, digital articles, but the information is still there. Writing will always be prevalent in this world.

People are always going to want to know what's going on. They are always going to want to read a good story. That fact isn't going anywhere.

I may be taking classes to learn how to write an effective and persuasive story for print and broadcast, how to put together a news package and report for TV, but my professors also know that the world of journalism is evolving. I am being taught relevant, up-to-date skills-- not just the old school stuff.

Without journalists, there would be no 5 o'clock newscast on TV for you know what's unfolding in Syria. You wouldn't see Barack Obama's State of Union Addresses or be able to follow the political campaigns. Twitter news or any sort of online news wouldn't be there if it weren't for journalists.

So please- the next time you open your mouth to a journalism major, someone who wants to become a journalist, anyone who is passionate about news, writing, getting a message across to a large audience or anything in between- remember that they love what they're doing just as much as you love what you're doing. They're paying money to get an education, working just as hard as anyone else, studying just as much and are only going to benefit you in the long run.