Now that I am officially done with my freshman year of college, I have a little time to sit back, relax and reflect on my experience. Throughout this year, I've worked through a many traditional college student stresses - homework, new friends, feeling like a small fish in a big pond, etc. - but I've also accomplished a lot. During the 2013-2014 school year, I've had my writing published on four different websites (Huntington News, Her Campus Northeastern, Artistry Magazine, and the NUScience blog) and in two hard copy magazines (Huntington News and NUScience).
Writing for so many different outlets has been great practice for me, since I published barely any writing in high school, and because I wasn't really familiar with the structure of a news story until now. Furthermore, writing for a variety of publications at Northeastern has helped me feel like journalism - specifically science writing - is a viable career path for me, as long as I keep sharpening my skills over the summer and continue to pursue new writing opportunities.
In addition to building my portfolio through extracurricular writing, I've also taken some great classes in both my areas of interest, which have helped me become more well versed in science and journalism. Among others, I've taken Physics, which is a field I'd previously only studied the basics of, and I've interviewed my professor about her research on the Higgs Boson; I've taken Interpreting the Day's News, which helped motivate me to actually start reading the news, as any good journalist - and human - should; and I've taken Journalism 1, which helped me build my writing skills and become more comfortable reporting.
After all the experiences I've had this year, I still can't say I'm ready for the rest of my life to begin. However, I feel more confident than I ever have about my education, my career, and my future.
