When I started my undergraduate career at Macaulay in 2015, I knew I wanted to continue doing something I enjoyed in high school. During my senior year, I had served as Brooklyn Technical High School Key Club’s bulletin editor and was tasked with creating monthly newsletters about the club. The closest thing to that, that I could think of, was writing for a school newspaper. The Macaulay Messenger was the very first publication I joined and got published in. I thought this would merely be a fun hobby and never imagined I would even consider a career in journalism. But here I am now, three years later, with a multitude of journalism experience and a great love for the field of journalism.
When I joined the Messenger, I was writing for the sports section — eventually being promoted to sports editor — and considered sports journalism as my career goal for a brief period. It’s crazy how much can change in only a couple of years; thanks to some other experiences and journalism classes that helped shape my interests, I became fascinated with reporting — mostly for longform feature stories. That isn’t even close to being representative of my coverage, however, as just one look at my author page on here will reveal articles across the campus news, arts, science, opinions and sports sections. I’m a bit complicated, or at least my writing and journalism interests are.
Aside from writing, I’ve branched out to podcasting, running social media accounts, managing websites and doing layout for The Excelsior, one of Brooklyn College’s student newspapers — another publication I have a lot to be grateful for in terms of helping me develop as a journalist. It’s amazing the amount of opportunities that are available thanks to digital media and the Internet in general, and I encourage anyone interested in becoming a journalist to not limit themselves to just one skill-set. If you’ve mostly written columns, try reporting about an event or a feature story you’re interested in developing. Now, try incorporating the audio from interviews into the story. If you’ve always been curious about web design but never had the chance to dive into coding, do so. And what may even be considered mandatory in the digital age: build your brand on social media.
As I begin to wrap up my senior year in college, I’m amazed when reflecting on how different I am compared to when I was a freshman who thought she would one day become an environmental chemist. And now, I intern on the digital team at Everytown for Gun Safety — a far cry from journalism, but not any less enjoyable. It can be difficult for anyone to find a line of work they truly enjoy doing, and I’m eternally grateful for the fact that despite my ever-changing interests in digital media in the last three years, I’ve enjoyed every second of it.
