Second semester of my freshman year I was not happy with my class schedule.

14-year-old Olivia Potter wanted to work in film and television and take Wando’s Media Tech
class. My counselor told me it was only available for sophomores and placed me in Journalism I
despite my complaints. Now, reflecting back 4 years later, I believe being put in that Journalism
I class truly changed my life.
When I was younger, I had this tendency to ask everyone I met an array of random
questions, trying to find something interesting about them or discover something no one else
knew. I still have that desire now, but I’ve funneled it into my passion for journalism. In that
journalism class my freshman year, my teacher told the class that every single person has a
story to share, and you just need to know how to ask for it.
One of the first major assignments my journalism teacher gave was to write a short
personality profile on anyone in our school community. I was excited to try to find someone
interesting and immediately asked my middle school band director. I went after school and
spent over an hour in his office interviewing him about his life. I wrote what I now view as a
terrible summary of his life and musical career, but at the time I was so proud of my first
completed piece of journalistic work.
I had caught the writing bug and suddenly all the animosity I had towards being placed in
the class dissipated. From the reviews we wrote to the photography assignments and class
discussions, I threw myself into the classwork and loved every second of it. My journalism
teacher, Phillip Caston, was also our school’s yearbook adviser. After he shared with our class
that he was currently accepting applications for the following year’s staff, I immediately applied. I
had found my place at Wando and I wanted to make the most of it.
I started my Sophomore year as a staff writer in the Student Life section. My first story
covered a senior who was graduating a year early to move to Colombia to work before college.
The entire process of developing the story filled me with a type of excitement I’d never felt
before. From then on, I was on a roll and wrote story after story and did any extra work I could
do to help the yearbook. Near the middle of that year, Caston announced applications for the
following year’s Editor in Chief. I knew the role would go to a senior and wasn’t confident
enough in my abilities to even entertain the idea of applying. However, one of the Editors in
Chief at the time, a girl named Marguerite, came and placed an application in front of me while I
was writing one day. She just smiled at me and told me I should give it a look. Excited that a
senior with as much talent as Marguerite saw potential in me, I took the application home and
began working on it.
I wasn’t given the role of Editor in Chief my junior year as it’s a role traditionally reserved
for seniors, but I was placed as an editor for the Student Life section. At that point, I had
decided journalism was what I wanted to do, soI became more invested than ever. That fall, I
won my first award in journalism for a memorial story. The feeling of that win carried me through
the tough adjustment of being a writer to suddenly leading 4 others who were looking to me for
assistance. When the time came around again that Caston announced applications for Editor in
Chief, I was the first to walk up and take one. I was confident in my abilities and I knew I had
what it took to lead the staff. I was selected as one of three to lead this year’s yearbook staff
and it has renewed my passion for journalism and set me more steady in my desire to pursue a
career in journalism.
 Looking back at my high school journalism career, I see areas where I’ve grown in ways
I never thought possible. I have become more confident in all areas of my life as I’ve learned
from my experiences. I still have plenty of learning and growing to do, and know journalism will
play a major role in that growth. While I cannot be sure of anything that is to come in the future, I
know that I will continue to work to share people’s stories as I always have, and watch myself
grow as a writer, leader, and human being from all the connections I get to make with others
who inspire my stories and who I am away from the keyboard and pen.