I feel that a lot of people do not truly understand the difference between a visual journalist and a photographer.

When I first heard about the visual journalism major, I myself was perplexed about what this major entailed. Was it design? Photography? Videography? I also had questions about what exactly you could do with this major.

I have always been into art, drawing and writing (but not very good at them), and since coming to college, I have found a love of photography, videography, as well as web design. I feel when most people think of a visual journalist, they imagine a photojournalist, and while that is a major component, the visual journalism major incorporates so much more. While majoring in visual journalism, you are also taking classes that pertain to the other tracks of the journalism major, such as news editorial and public relations. This helps give you well-rounded knowledge in the journalism world, providing you with more opportunities and expertise.

When MySpace was a big deal eight years ago (feel old yet?), I was updating and changing my profile constantly. I have always been a big fan of making things look visually appealing. Being aesthetically pleasing has been a persistent goal with social media in my life. I always make sure my Instagram, Snapchat and recently my Twitter and Facebook accounts are always visually pleasing. I have unfortunately forgot all the coding I learned while creating MySpace accounts, but I plan on taking a basic computer science class at some point in my college career to regain it.

While I enjoy taking photos, photojournalism is not my end goal with this major. When I think of visual journalism, I am more interested in the design aspect. This draws people to ask why I don’t major in design instead, but by majoring in visual journalism I am able to incorporate my love of taking photos, and the satisfaction of having them published in a newspaper or making a video and having them displayed online is amazing. As opposed to design, the journalistic aspect of the major enables me to interview and meet interesting people of all backgrounds. People say the industry of journalism is dying, yet I see the industry as evolving. It’s developing into an online industry rather than print, which is exactly what I am interested in.

I enjoy aesthetically pleasing people and engaging them more in what is happening in the world journalistically and visually. I believe that by adding a visual aspect to journalism, you are engaging a larger audience and adding something both exceptional and relatable.

Don’t get me wrong when I say that visual journalism isn’t just photography, because it all starts with photography and expanding into videos, all while adding a journalistic side. Photography is just taking pleasing pictures, but when you add journalism into the mix, you have to go up to whatever subject you are taking pictures of and figure out who's in them, where they are, what they're doing. By giving a voice to an otherwise silent photo, you encompass another element to just taking pictures. You’re not just taking a photo, you’re telling an entire story within a single frame.

My point is, visual journalism isn’t just photography. Visual journalism is everything visually pleasing that has to do with journalism. Within the four corners of a photo, you do the work of 800 words.