When I made the decision last year to take journalism, I took it because I thought that it would be an easier, more fun alternative to a traditional, literature based English class. I was partially right in this assumption. Taking journalism has been incredibly fun, but also a lot of work. However, all the work and all the writing wound up making me a better writer. All of the articles, presentations, and analysis of topics all led me to becoming a more confident, more coherent writer than I had been in previous English classes. Taking journalism also introduced me to entirely new writing styles such as purely informative news writing, feature writing, and persuasive editorial writing among others that really taught me how to vary my writing style and how to write in a way that can entice and engage a reader through the use of varied language, headlines, and leads.

One of the biggest draws for people wanting to take journalism is the ability that students who take the class have to write about topics they are passionate about and even more-so publish these works to a public forum for their peers and teachers to see. Overall, I loved my experience taking journalism, especially once I got past all of the introductory first semester things and got to choose what to write about and what I was passionate about. Despite the class having a course load that leans to the heavier side, I loved the time I spent learning to be a journalist and felt like it was so beneficial to do so with a small class that only enhanced the feeling of cooperation and kinship throughout the year. I can absolutely recommend taking journalism to any prospective students because it will be fun and it will be informative. As a person who entered the class not liking writing and not feeling like a strong writer, I can truly say that once you get away from long, heavily formatted essays anyone can become a great writer.