Within the week, students will be choosing their classes for next year, and if you happen to have a class open, you should consider taking Journalism. I may be a little biased, but journalism is the best elective you can take. I think that a lot of other students in the class agree as well. Journalism not only helps improve your academics but also your social skills. 

Journalism is a student-led, elective class you can take where you write for our school’s newspaper, The West Press. Each month, you get to come up with your own idea for an article and write about it. It could be about a sport, club, movie review, favorite teacher, or popular news. The opportunities to express yourself are endless. and even when we are not writing stories, we are coming up with ideas to improve the paper. I am sure everyone has seen the QR code faces and the t-shirts around the school and those ideas came from me during a brainstorming session —  and we made it a reality. Journalism class is a great place to let out your creative side. At the same time, it also improves your writing skills. Practice makes perfect and writing a small article once a month on top of your normal English class will help. Personally, I saw my English grade increase exponentially after I joined journalism. 

When writing an article, you may have to interview people which is a great skill to learn. It will teach you how to prepare for interviews and how to talk to others in a more professional way. Journalism has helped me break out of my comfort zone. As an introvert, it was hard for me to talk to anyone new, but after I interviewed people, I found it a lot easier to talk to people. You also make tons of new friends! The journalism class is more than a class. It is a comfortable environment where you feel like you can be yourself. 

The class is also taught by one of the most praised teachers at West, Ms. Mahoney. She is the most supportive and caring teacher I have had. If you haven’t heard of her yet, you will probably want to. She always wants the best for her students and if you do the work, you will get an A. Overall, journalism is a very fun, helpful, and creative class. I believe that it is worth taking.