When I was in high school going through the college decision process, I recalled my friends and I sharing what we planned to major in and I was probably the only person studying journalism.
People often asked “Aren’t newspapers dying?” or “You never got involved with the high school newspaper! How do you know you want to do this?”
Well, the truth is that I wanted to go into either education or music originally until my junior year of high school. I took a class for an elective where we produced the school announcements and I enjoyed the video projects and learn basic video editing. In my senior year, I ended up career shadowing and that really helped set my decision in stone.
Most importantly, I love writing. I was truly an English nerd, but the main reason that I did not want to major in English was due to that I wanted to help tell stories more than analyze. I enjoy creative writing as well but studying it would only ruin the fun for me. However, I knew that journalism was not all about writing - even though a good chunk of it is - and I wanted to learn more about it. My passion for writing fused together with wanting to learn more about technology and multimedia kind of made it obvious at that point at that time.
Fast-forward two years later, I have published a number of articles, photos and worked on several projects that challenged me and made me grow. There have been many nights that I lost sleep just to meet a deadline and show up to one of my two jobs exhausted the next day. I have covered events on Friday nights instead of binging on my shows. However, I wouldn’t trade it away for anything.
I have pushed myself in many elements through journalism. I can be professional and approach strangers, something I could never imagine doing before I came to college.
I have talked with people both on and off the record about their experiences and what has amazed me the most is that you can see people at their best day or at their worst. Different events that happen locally to internationally affect people in different ways. We don’t know what someone has been through and for someone to be comfortable enough to share a hard time in their life to a journalist, that is one of many reasons why I keep writing. That keeps me reporting. The idea that I can make an impact to one person’s life is what drives me to do the best I can.
Now I am asked while I am on summer break, “Where are you planning to intern at this year?” and “What career paths do you see yourself going down?” and honestly, it’s hard to say. There are so many opportunities that are out there and it can feel overwhelming to find what your niche is. I have thought of the idea of going into more political reporting or news due to the how consumers see many political stories showing bias or presenting data that might not represent a whole population accurately.
If you ask me now “aren’t newspapers dying?”, I would respond with “newspapers are not dying any time soon” because many are now going online. Information is more accessible than ever before.
News is always going to be out there in the world and is always evolving. It is important because we help record our history and keep communities informed and safe. Stories have been told since the beginning of time and there are no signs of slowing.
