Washington, District of Columbia

The National Mall at night.

This is the first time that I have ever been to the East Coast, and it turned out to be that my first visit would be the Nation’s Capital! This opportunity was given to me by Campus Progress  via a journalism training summit. I looked forward to learning about the skills and necessities to be a journalist and to  create a good publication; I look to the future of the magazine I belong to, La Gente de Aztlan Newsmagazine.

However, I must admit, going to a new city by myself (essentially, without my family) made me nervous, but my dad taught me to see everything as an adventure, so I took a deep breath and began to see the positive aspects of this experience.

The conference was intimidating with so many students from all of across of the country. I wish instead of a game to search for the person with the winning answer, we could have gotten to know the person, his or her role in their school paper, and kind of paper they have. If success includes sharing ideas, then that seemed like the best way to do so.

The second day was a long day, but only because there was so much information to learn. It’s nice for someone who actually works in the industry, and practices it everyday, to tell us how to report and all the ethics and rules around that. (Though sometimes I felt like my personality didn’t fit the concept/role/duty of a journalist. It’ll be the question that I will have to ask myself many times later as I continue college.) I would love to how to report and become a good writer/observer/critic in that respect, however, when my friends and I walked around D.C. taking pictures and exploring new areas, photography was extremely satisfying; more comfortable than writing a lede. All I wanted to do, it seemed, was to explore the city more to improve my photographic skills.

This last day, which explored the multimedia component of school journalism, felt like a fun opportunity for me to explore other ways of talking about ideas and experiences, such as this blog.

One more thing,  I was very proud to be apart of an university that had many progressive journalism outlets (seven publications!) and hopefully the aid of Campus Progress will make our historic publications become better at covering our community (and catering to our audience).