What an interesting year it's been at the Mecca. From a COVID freshman year to a full-throttle, all-hands-on senior year, Zoe, you have done it all. As an eager freshman, you came in ready to run the yard. However, COVID managed your expectations. Starting your freshman year fall semester online, you were ready for a fresh start. Zoom classes became a routine and you longed for a change of scenery. Transitioning into the second semester, you boldly moved to Hyattsville, Maryland, with a few girls you met via social media and HU’24 iMessage group chats. As you ended your freshman year, you learned more about yourself and became prepared to start sophomore year off strong. It is August 2021 and Howard has finally switched to in-person/hybrid classes. You were eager to meet fresh faces, learn more about your school, and get involved on campus. You joined the Howard University Association of Black Journalists and became the Community Service Chair and Spotlight Network as a reporter and co-founder of a bi-weekly entertainment show called “Run It Back”. This year is when you began to learn about the fundamentals of journalism. With professors like Dr. Patton, Professor McWhorter, and Ericka Blount, you realized there are many methods and ways to intriguing storytelling. Learning different programs like Inshot, WordPress, Canva, and Associated Press, you began to build on your knowledge of what it means to be a journalist. In your Spring semester, you had your first online journalism internship with Glitter Magazine and became a new member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Alpha Chapter. Fast forward to junior year. With so much to juggle, academics were still a priority for you. You pushed through with your journalism and graphic design courses (Oh yeah, graphic design is your minor now) and applied for more internships and programs. You were surprised that through the application process, you were selected for an interview with the TODAY show and got the role as a summer production intern! Feeling like a small fish in a big pond, you jumped out on a leap of faith and had a great summer full of networking opportunities. Now, you are a senior. Time sure does fly! Your growth from freshman year to now feels like it happened in the blink of an eye. As you approached your senior year, you were dreadful of the one course every student in the School of Communications Journalism department fears, Capstone: Newsvision Lab. Loaded with information, assignments, and projects, Capstone is a six-credit course all journalism students must take upon graduation. As nervous as you were, you entered the classroom with an open and eager mindset to do well and soak up as much information as possible. Professor Thomas has pushed, challenged, and made you truly realize what you’re stepping into when you enter the newsroom. Filled with blogs, packages, assignments, tutorials, and formulas, Professor Thomas has given you more than enough to confidently say that you are ready for your next chapter as a journalist. So, you may be wondering, what is a journalist? A journalist is a writer, storyteller, eager, open-minded, “knows a little about a lot”, detail-oriented, curious, organized, ethical, and fair, just to name a few. As you near the end of the semester, you walk away from this class knowing so much more than when you came in, and with classmates and a Professor who turned from strangers to family.
