About me

Occupation: Law school student

     
   Location: New Orleans, La.  

Places I've lived: Houston; Hammond, La.; College Station, Texas; Malibu, Calif.; and Pasadena, Calif. 

Outside Interests: South America, live music and Great Books.

What I've done in print media

• Become well-published. My articles have been published in four professional publications and three student publications in my 10 years of professional and student journalism. I also have worked as a newspaper research assistant internationally.

• Risen to the top. I have been editor in chief at both school newspapers, which consistently won top honors. In both positions, I made leadership and ethical decisions, and learned the ins and outs of virtually every aspect of what it takes to put together a publication.

• Learned to be a jack of all trades. I've written for every newspaper section from sports to business to arts and entertainment. I can edit and re-work articles. I can develop and assign stories. I can take a front page photo and edit it in PhotoShop. I can design eye-pleasing pages in UNISYS, QuarkXPress and Pagemaker. And all on a tight deadline.

 
What I've done with my life

•  Sought specialization. After two years of working as a professional journalist, I headed back to academia to pursue a JD at Tulane University in New Orleans in 2008.

•  Gotten a running start. My first job, which began one month after I graduated, was at the news copy desk at the San Gabriel Newspaper Group. The desk serves three sister newspapers with a total circulation of 100,000 papers. There I edited stories, wrote headlines, designed pages and edited the wire. 

After that position, I transitioned to business reporting. As the only business reporter for these three newspapers, I covered 31 cities and wrote stories on daily deadlines as well as longer pieces for special sections.
 

•  Received a top-notch education. I graduated from Pepperdine University, a first-tier school, in 2006 with a B.A. in journalism and a minor in Spanish. 

At Pepperdine, I also completed the Great Books Colloquium. With those four courses, I read many of the world's most respected authors and philosophers such as Homer, Milton, Kant, Descartes and Sartre. 

I also attended La Universidad Católica in Buenos Aires, one of the best schools in South America.

• Traveled the globe. I lived in Buenos Aires for two semesters, visited four other South American countries, hiked for three days through the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu, fell out of several white-water rafts, cruised around the tip of South America and learned to tango. 

I have also done philanthropic work in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and spent a couple of weeks in central Europe.

• Found perspective. Besides my stints in Honduras, I have volunteered at a juvenile detention center with the inmate-run newspaper. I have also been a counselor at a summer camp for inner-city youth in Texas. Additionally, I tutored English to Spanish-speaking men and women seeking employment in Malibu's labor exchange center.