StormWatch Staff Travels to Harvard Journalism Conference

By Katie Curran, staff reporter 
 
On Saturday, October 13th, members of the Sturgis East Stormwatch Newspaper along with advisor Mr. Hyer attended the Harvard Crimson Journalism Conference at Harvard University. I was lucky enough to have this amazing opportunity to learn about journalism.
    We arrived at the conference at 9:30 in the morning and were welcomed by members of the Harvard Crimson newspaper, the nation's oldest continuously published daily college newspaper.
    Along with several classmates, I started off my day by attending a workshop called "Techniques for News Writers". During the workshop, we learned what it takes to be a good writer. The leader of our session then sent us outdoors on an assignment to ask people what they plan to do for Halloween. The other students and I talked to people from all over the world including the US, South Africa, and England. We learned a lot about the culture of each person during the interviews. Interviewing people taught us how to be sharp with our interview skills. It also allowed us to become more comfortable interviewing people. This was an extremely rewarding assignment and exercise that truly showed us how to use our reporting skills. After the interviews, we went back to the Harvard Crimson headquarters and wrote articles about Halloween as experienced by people from around the world.
    Later in the afternoon, we had two classes that were an hour each. I went to a class about writing for magazines and capturing the culture of campus life. I learned a lot about feature stories and how to improve my writing skills. It inspired me with some great ideas of what to write about at school. I also took a videography class. This class taught me what I could do to provide students with multimedia videos on our websites. Each Harvard student that taught classes during the day really inspired all of us.
    We also listened to keynote speaker David Abel who is a staff reporter for the Boston Globe. We heard his inspiring story of how he became a journalist and his experiences in the world of journalism. We also had the chance to ask him questions. He told each of us that we are extremely lucky to have this opportunity to attend the journalism conference at Harvard, and he wishes that he could have attended it when he was starting out as a journalism student.
    We had a great day in Cambridge and definitely learned a lot. I never would have had the opportunity to do anything like this if it wasn't for the Sturgis Stormwatch and the Harvard Crimson reaching out to us. It was an experience like no other, and I was so fortunate that I had this opportunity. I certainly hope to attend the conference again! From driving up to Cambridge with Mr. Hyer, eating lunch and dinner with Sturgis classmates, taking classes, and walking around Harvard, this experience was unforgettable.