March 28, 2024

My sophomore year was worlds different than my freshmen year. I remember writing this same piece last year as a freshman and writing about my improvements and don’t get me wrong, I still have improved dramatically this year, but this year, I focused more on educating myself.

Last year, I took Intro to Journalism to determine if I really wanted to pursue Journalism as a potential career and as something outside of The Torch. I loved it. This year, on the other hand, I’ve taken a deeper plunge into the realm of Journalism and English.

While I only took a total of three English classes this year, I learned so much, particularly from my Advanced Feature Writing class with D’Arcy Fallon. We spent ample time reading and analyzing feature articles from writers all across the spectrum. From this class, I learned to love features.

I love the intensity, specificity and the subject matter that features have. It was this class that helped me to realize that I can easily combine my love for writing and interest in people (I’m also a psychology major). A number of the articles we read in class required the writer to literally insert themselves into their subject’s life, often living with them or in their cars just outside their house.

What specifically caught my attention about feature writing were columns. The creative freedom is what I specifically enjoyed. I’ve always felt like I have a very established voice as a writer and that, when appropriate, I do a good job capturing moments or describing emotions in a humorous way that fits the ironic and often comical tone of columns.

With that, this upcoming year I will be interning with The Torch and, as a part of my internship, I hope to start up my own column. I’m very excited to write for the column and to see where it takes me.

This year has yielded several stories that I love. I have particularly enjoyed writing pieces where I can be the voice of reason and common ground between students and faculty. Articles like “Lacking Housing Upkeep Endangers Students” and “Task Force Discusses Secret Society Findings” were so fun for me to write. As a student myself, I loved having the opportunity to interview both faculty and students to get both sides of the story in order to write an article that wasn’t biased towards one side or the other.

As for the year as a whole, I’m very proud of the things I’ve accomplished and learned thus far in my career as a journalist and hope to continue to grow in the years to come.

 

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