<p>Good evening everyone,</p>
<p>How are you all? I am interested in pursuing a major in Journalism or a related field, such as Communications, Media Studies, or English. Specifically, my career choice falls under print journalism, not film, broadcast, radio, or television. Since my high school school does not offer a Journalism course, are there any other classes that I should be taking to prepare me for what one of the said aforementioned majors will entail. Also, I want to include poverty studies when I attend college, whether it be through International/Global Studies, Poverty Studies, Human Services, Sociology, Social Studies, Anthropology, or another program which examines poverty.</p>
<p>Thank you so much,
Andrew</p>
<p>You should actually high light this interest by joining HS activities that allow you to write for publications. Does your HS have a newspaper? Is there a Literary Magazine, either through class participation or club sponsored? You want to start submitting articles for print at school first and foremost. That’s one of the best ways to show a talent for journalism. </p>
<p>If your HS doesn’t offer journlism writing, then consider taking it through a local community college. You may be able to get it on your transcript as dual enrollment (meaning credit for HS and college), so talk to your counselor and see what options you have. You could take DE classes for sociology, anthro, etc. as well. You can take these during summer or weekends at a cc if DE isn’t an option, or through “Virtual HS”. What state are you located?</p>
<p>In Jan., consider applying to a college based writing program. Kenyon College offers one of the best for HS youth, and so does U. of Virginia. The applications are due in late Feb. and you need recs, so have those ready to go. The programs last two to three weeks during the summer and there are scholarships available, so apply for those if you need money to attend. UVA’s app. is found through their Curry School. Just google Kenyon Young Writers Workshop for the other. You need to improve your writing skills, and these programs are two of the best. It will also show what ever colleges you will be applyng to in the future, that this is a sincere passion.</p>
<p>My schol does not have a high school newspaper or magazine of any sort. The closest we have is Yearbook, which definitely places a much higher emphasis on multimedia sources and graphic design. I’m taking Journalism currently through Florida Virtual School, and I plan to take a few more virtual schol classes this year and later on in the summer. One of the few disadvantages of attending a small private high school is the decreased number of class choices offered. However, FLVS has some great options to fulfill these, and they are free whereas a Dual Enrollment class would be fairly expensive. Those workshops sound great, and I will consider all of them. Thank you for this information. It helps a lot.</p>
<p>If you can write for a local paper, that would be good practice. Any experience you get writing will be useful to you. With journalism, being able to put a story together really quickly is about the best skill you can develop and the more you write, the faster you will get. You also can submit stories to magazines, but journalism focuses more on non-fiction, so the publications you choose are more limited. You could also start a blog. Good luck.</p>
<p>That sounds like a good idea. Hopefully the Orlando Sentinel will accept some of my writing. I also participate in Speech and Debate and A.P. English Language, both of which are fairly writing-intensive (as are all my other A.P’s.) I’ll have to look into starting a blog. Thank you for the suggestions!</p>
<p>You might also look into writing for Knight-Ridder over along the coast as well. The Orlando paper is a pretty big one and you may have luck there, but I am sure there are some smaller local papers that might publish your work. Your school might appreciate you writing some feature type articles about things your school is doing that they could then use to get publicity.</p>
<p>Thank you for that information. I have actually published one article with the West Orlando News before, but I have never heard of the Knight-Ridder until now. I’ll check that out.</p>
<p>You should do a little more research into the journalism field. It’s hard to believe anyone who is serious about that would never have heard of Knight-Ridder, one of the largest newspaper publishers in the US.</p>
<p>Well, to be honest I’ve only recently decided on journalism as a career path. Since the majority of my emphasis is based on studying poverty, I think I might end up publicly speaking for non-profits or working on publishing articles for them. For me, I have to be passionate about something to actually write about it.</p>