On the first day of school, walking to Journalism, I, did not know what to expect. Was I going to being writing essays all semester? Was I going to be reading huge books? I had no idea, but in my head I had pretty much made up my mind to drop the class, because I could not do all this writing and reading my senior year.

“Isn’t senior year supposed to be easy?” I thought to myself.

Well I walked into class and Mrs. Maldonado greeted me with a huge “Hello! How was your summer?” Then we moved into class and she was rambling on about all these important things we needed to know about Journalism. I was sitting there thinking to myself “What have I gotten myself into?”

Well, as it turns out, to this day there is not one morning I dread waking up for school because I know I have Journalism to look forward to.

Journalism is not as difficult as many may believe. In Journalism, students create The Hawkeye. It all starts out by choosing a story or article you would like to write for the newspaper. After that you find your sources, you interview them, and you come back to the lab and write away. After the story or article is complete it goes into the inbox for revising. After the revising process is over, the story is filed and layout awaits.

In layout there are some challenges, but also some easy steps to making the page look spectacular. It all is worth it in the end when you get to see all your hard work printed in the paper, in the hands of students walking down the hallway.

There are many times you are able to move at your own pace which is great and relaxing. But there are deadlines for your stories just like any other class. So waiting until the last minute would not be the most ideal, because rushing an article can cause the quality to be lower than what someone is capable of. After all, you are writing for the school newspaper and we all want our school represented well.

Journalists are extremely dedicated to the work they produce. They work hard to gather all the information needed and only the facts. Everyone in the Journalism class, no matter the grade level, takes pride in their work.

In Journalism there is no judging others. Everyone is their own person and it is very much respected. It is like a family. If someone needs information about a topic, everyone chimes in and helps the person who needs it. No one is left behind Journalism.

Journalism is usually held both semesters at Urbana, but unfortunately this year we only have it first semester. Classes like Journalism are all about class size and how many people sign up to take the class. For instance, if ten people sign up it is nowhere near enough students to hold a class, compared to the number of students who sign up to take Team Sports.

For everyone out there who would like to try something new, feel like a member of a family, and see your work published in the newspaper, Journalism is the perfect place for you. Sign up. You never know if you may be that one student that could push the class size big enough to have Journalism all school year.