Writing

During my senior year, I developed a passion for writing feature stories. There are many adopted students at my school, each with fascinating stories to be told. I decided to feature their stories in a piece on their past and current realities, with a particular focus on how their personal histories affect them today. This allowed me to get to know the stories of my peers better as well as provide a platform for them to share their stories.

One of my interviewees thanked me for writing this story and giving her an opportunity to discuss her experiences, which reaffirmed my understanding of the importance of allowing for student voices to be heard.

Breaking the news of my school's principal's impending retirement was one of the most exciting stories for me to write. I obtained the letter sent out to the school community, wrote a preliminary story, interviewed students, edited my work, and published as quickly as possible so that the factually correct information was posted on our site.

When major events happen at school, especially unexpected ones, it is crucial that verifiable facts are posted in a timely manner to eliminate as many rumors and as much confusion as possible.

I have enjoyed covering issues that trouble students on a daily basis. Like most of my fellow seniors in high school, I have experienced the influx of college recruitment emails and began to wonder what students thought. To provide another perspective, I also interviewed an individual who works in admissions at Washington College, from whom many students at my school receive mail.

One of my favorite challenges I have set for myself is to take seemingly uninteresting subjects and reveal the fascinating stories behind them. Most students I know delete emails from colleges without a second thought, but how many of them have put thought into the process behind these emails?

This story won a Best of SNO award.

This feature story was a particularly fun one for me to write. I live very near to the University of Delaware campus and regularly hear about students who go there, but when I heard about a student who was running for mayor of my city, I knew I had to feature him.

Every once in a while, an interview doesn't quite land. This was not one of those times. My interviewee, Mr. Guthrie, was more than happy to elaborate about experiences in his life that have brought him to this point, making it enjoyable to construct.

This story won a Best of SNO award.

Interviewing Eva Kor, a Holocaust survivor and survivor of the infamous Dr. Mengele who has since dedicated her life to forgiveness, was a great honor and one of the highlights of my journalistic career. I went into the interview with a list of questions, but ultimately ended up going completely off-script and learning things I never would have had I not taken that risk.

This story also challenged me to synthesize an in-depth interview and a lecture that was over an hour long. Boiling a large amount of information down to a narrative that tells the story of a woman I respect immensely was, to put it frankly, nerve-wracking. Ultimately, after many hours of revision and fact-checking, I feel that I successfully conveyed her story and motives.