Possibilites

Ever since I was given a pen to write with, I never stopped writing. My passion for writing led me to joining the yearbook club in elementary school and yearbook class in middle school. In High School I joined the newspaper club for just one semester while I was in California and I loved it. My dream is to have my own column in a world known newspaper and now its just about taking the baby steps to get there. The first baby step was taking a journalism class in college.


At the beginning I was so nervous to enter this class and the professor in the front looked very intimidating. I thought she was going to be like that mean editor in Spiderman.... that movie scared me btw for being a journalist.


Yet how I was wrong. This class was taught so informal that it was indirectly teaching us that we are our own person and we have to take our own steps to achieve things in life without having someone to hold our hands.

These are the major things I learned this class.

1. No matter what, make sure that the person you are interviewing knows you are a jorunalist or things can get really down and dirty

2. Always get your quotes right. You dont want someone knowing on your door with their lawyer.

3. Dont be Lazy. HUSTLE. HUSTLE. HUSTLE. How do you expect to get a good story by just sitting on your lazy butt all day. Get out and go hunting!

4. Social media is very important. I opened up a twitter, wordpress, wix.com site, and a linkedin all in one semester because I never knew these sites could benefit my career.


5. Make sure you are ethical in your reporting. Do NOT make up quotes, stories, or accuse someone of doing something just to make your story better. Not only does this make you look STUPID when caught, just go be a story teller instead of a news reporter.



Time to be conceited:

I knew I was born to write. Everyone always made me edit their papers in high school and when we were given a research paper, BAM thats an easy A. But journalism was a bit different that what I thought it was going to be. Its not just about writing. Its about getting out there and meeting people to hear their stories. I always thought i was a social butterfly but not until our first assignment. I was nervous out of my shoes on what on earth I was going to ask these people. However, once I got that story going, it just kept getting better and better for me. I did not once think aside what I was going to ask them.

When I had to interview the director of a play, I made a list of brief bullet points on my phone, took out my recorder and just started talking. To the point, I didnt even use my bullet points because since the conversation was so natural, and I was already interested in the deets behind it, I got way more than what I needed for the story. AWESOMENESS

I see myself being very succesfull in this career with a little bit of white hairs because yes it is challenging. But like I said, taking baby steps.


Sabira Mawji
@SabiraMawji