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My journey as a journalist


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When I got into the senior project/internship class at UNF, the professor supervising my progress put up some articles and words of advise on how to begin our journey as an intern.

One of the things she put on there was that you were probably not going to do anything your first day and because of that, should find things to do so you aren’t just twiddling your thumbs.

Well, that was not the case for me.

My first day here, our editor, Eric Cravey, handed me three stories that he wanted me to work on, including a court case that was being heard by the Florida Supreme Court. I was thrown right into the fire almost immediately.

When I was trying to figure out who I was going to intern with, Clay Today was not at the top of my list. But when I came in for my interview, I ended up spending almost two hours just talking with Eric about my interest and my experiences. I spent more time in this interview than I did at all four of my other interviews combined.

Through my time here I have gotten to meet many different people in our community and had the chance to have my name on a front page story.

My journey as a journalist doesn’t start with me as a child reading news articles or watching the evening news and wanting to be the person on the screen. It instead starts in the office of my advisor at UNF.

I had just transferred to UNF from FSCJ where I originally planned to major in medicine, particularly neurology, and become a neurologist. But after taking biology 1, which I found to be incredibly boring, I decided to go to communications with the intention of getting my degree and becoming a paramedic. This way, I would have a college degree and still be able to work in medicine.

Well, my advisor was sitting with me when she told me that I needed to pick a focus — journalism, public relations or advertising. I was pretty shocked when she said this and as a result, quickly picked journalism as it seemed the most interesting. I have always loved writing stories so it seemed like the perfect thing to do.

Well fast forward about three years later — I got a little behind on picking the right classes — and here I am just a few short weeks from getting my degree and looking forward to pursuing a career as a journalist.

One thing I always told people when I was growing up was that I would never have a desk job. I thought about that on my first day here, while I sat at my desk.

My time at Clay Today has allowed to write about a variety of topics and has helped me further my experience as I begin to shift into the professional world.

My goal as I move forward is to one day become a hockey journalist. Odd for someone who grew up in Florida, right? I have always loved the sport and would love nothing more than to get to follow a team around, even if it’s just a minor league team, and write about them while watching the game.

To give you an idea how much I love the game, I watched a youtube video of when Ray Bourque won the Stanley Cup as I started writing this and almost started crying. So you could say that I am a hockey guy.

But I’m not going to let myself get tied down by this. I just want to write something that will make me feel accomplished, even if only one single person reads it.

I won’t forget my time here at Clay Today for showing me the different aspects of a community that I am happy to have been a part of and help me grow as I leave education to enter the professional world of journalism.