Biography
I had to get my own story from scratch. Do the dirty work. Make phone calls. Acquire my own sources. Our guest speakers were exceptional. The entire experience at Montage reflected back to me by reassuring that this was what I wanted to do. Especially, after taking the tour to 'The Miami Herald' towards the latter end of the workshop.
I wrote a feature on a Haitian refugee student who found the game of football and has used it to gain college recognition from several scouts. He tries to rebuild his life separated from his mother and suffers from the loss of his brother and father that were perished by the Haitian earthquake. My story was retold but into a video news package which went on to win an award for “Best Multimedia Video,” an award that takes nominations from over forty different workshops similar to Miami Montage from across the nation, and an Editorial Board by the Dow Jones News Fund selects one ultimate winner.
As I later graduated high school, I was able to land my biggest feat by gaining a summer newsroom internship with 'The Miami Herald.' I was the only high school student selected amongst over 100 applicants that applied and were interviewed. I spent eight-weeks in their lively Biscayne newsroom writing stories that were featured in their print publication, as well as contributing with a video production staff to create multimedia content for their online website.
I am a current collegiate journalist who is proficient in all branches of mass communication from print and broadcast to photography, web design and film — all thanks to my experiences in high school. I have written for The Miami Herald, Examiner.com, and school publications — The Torch and The Viper Vibe. My ambition is to look for new ways of storytelling, whether it be streamed on the web or printed on ink.
Though I may only be a first-year undergraduate, I believe I have the total package most collegiate journalists today are still striving to attain. All of my achievements have been largely credited to the Communications Academy I was devoted to throughout my four-year stay with my senior high school at Felix Varela in Miami, FL, where I took part in all facets of: Newspaper, TV Production, Literary Magazine and Yearbook. In each staff, I learned how to report, edit, design, anchor, shoot/edit video and create digital media content. And I was a leading part towards each of our publication’s successes.
I believe my combined skill-set, along with my passion in the field I love, would be a great addition to any prospective publication. Given my extensive background only as a freshman in college, I believe I can help contribute towards the ever-so evolving media market by providing accurate, informing and story-telling pieces in an array of platforms during this new media age as a rising journalist of the future.
Specialties: Posting, writing and editing for web, multimedia and social media/cross platform reporting, localizing story ideas, copy editing, video-journalism and having a keen sense of what is newsworthy.
I started off as a staff member for my senior high school's literary magazine, 'Vox Vipera,' my freshman year where I judged poetry, artwork and photography, creating a double-spread layout for our nationally ranked and highly-acclaimed literary magazine. That’s where I first began my journey into communications and became familiar with the tools to use Adobe InDesign (the program we use to create layouts) and also Photoshop. It wasn't until the last month of my freshman year that I began writing articles as a guest writer for our high school's student newspaper, 'The Viper Vibe.' My very first article published centered on the controversial new marlins stadium was featured on the ASNE National Edition -- and sports stories are almost never picked up by the National Edition Editorial Board.
Entering my sophomore year, I was appointed Section Editor for Sports. It was an overly-stressing and hectic job that I loved, mainly because no one wanted to write school sports. I had to push staff writers to get quotes/interviews, scores, and updates of games—while literally holding their hand—as we covered the most exciting to the least entertaining sports our school has to offer — which our school offered aplenty. Most staff reporters hardly knew how to write a well-written sports piece, so I had to take the initiative to sit down and teach each staff writer the fundamental basics one-by-one throughout the different sporting seasons. By doing so, I was also able to contribute to our student yearbook (Crotalus) by rehashing articles we had already printed but into more concise versions for their layouts. I also helped gather and take still photography to add images into each of these individual sports spreads.
The only way I was able to manage all of this responsibility was by extending my typical school day, hours after the regular student leaves school. On average, I stayed in school till 6:00 pm — about four hours past the time our school bell rings at 2:20 pm. And as I and others stayed, my newspaper adviser would often joke to us by saying, "The sun disappeared and we're still here."
At the end of my sophomore year, I had done so much work and showed a lot of dedication for our student paper that I was promoted to co-Editor-in-Chief entering my junior year. I grew immensely after my first full-year as a staff member that I was suggested to apply for a journalism workshop at the University of Miami called 'Miami Montage.' The University of Miami has always been my dream school, so easily I went ahead and I applied. A month later I got the call that I was accepted, but little did I know how much one’s perspective could grow even after knowing right away I wanted to become a journalist at such a young age.
I was enlightened again. Even though, I had won a few first place awards at our state journalism convention called FSPA (Florida Scholastic Press Association) while also having the chance to meet and interact with a few inspiring journalists – nothing compared to actually becoming a real-life journalist for three engaging weeks.