Have you ever seen celebrities answering questions from a journalist on live TV? You could do that as well if you take journalism in your high school career and throughout college. Journalism brings different opportunities, meeting people, socializing, and moreover introducing yourself out into the world.
To begin with, I took journalism in my first year of high school. It brought many memories with the people that I met, field trips, and overall, just a fun experience. People are more than willing to accept an interview, especially if it is about them or their individual experiences in life; family, pets or even their childhood and what they experienced. The only way to understand their most personal things is to make them feel comfortable enough to speak up about it. No one will ever be open about their past but preferably build trust with them.
Secondly, it is never too late to start. Journalism is truly one of the things that you should try. If you are more of a shy person, this will help you step out of your personal bubble. For you to step out of your comfort zone, they will have you interview someone to start drafting an article. From there, all the fun will begin. Field trips, more interviews, more articles, and even more people to know.
It might seem nerve-racking at first, but it gets easier the more that it happens. You become more open with your questions, and you have less fear of interviewing someone that you do not know. You might even randomly ask to interview someone and that is completely okay because that is the whole role of being a journalist; curiosity is a good thing when it comes to asking about someone’s life. Journalism is like a movie; you dig deeper into an adventure of a main character.
Obviously, not everyone is going to be interested in journalism or what we do as journalists and that is okay; there’s different interests that everyone prefers over journalism or anything else English related: math. There might be people who are not interested in English at all and prefer math but try new things is something that you should not be afraid of.
As an ultimate point, trying new things helps you learn and grow as a person. You might end up liking something and journalism can be one of them. There will be more people in your life who might believe and like the same things that you do. Writing is a passion, along with anything else, so put your mind to it and do not give up.
