Ever sat in a class and just wanted to go home? Your foot starts tapping impatiently. The minutes started feeling like hours. All you can think is “When is this class going to be over.” I’ve felt like this in many of my classes but not once did I feel like this during the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA) convention in Boston, Massachusetts. Student journalists from all over the country traveled to spend three days at this convention learning journalism-related techniques and tricks. The majority of the classes at this convention held my tiny attention span and helped me find my lost motivation.
As an ambitious procrastinator, there is always so much I want to do but can’t find the motivation to actually follow through. I feel like I’ve flipped a new page though. In order to get my stories done on time I would rely on self-discipline. With the skills I learned from NSPA, I am actually excited to write. I don’t need to force myself anymore because I can’t wait to try out these new tools in my journalistic toolbox.
The variety of classes was phenomenal. The convention offered everything from multimedia to writing to interview skills. My favorite class was taught by Dean Bradshaw, a journalism teacher at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Bradshaw taught a session on writing reviews and mainly focused his tidbit on movie reviews. He spoke to our group about finding your voice and expressing your opinion in a classy manner. This really intrigued me because I’ve always mainly written news stories. Maybe the reason I was losing interest in newspaper class was because I wasn’t actually writing about things that were meaningful to me. His words inspired me to try out writing a review which is exactly what I’m doing right now.
I’d say I’m a pretty organized person so when I saw how the schedule was planned out, I was baffled. The schedule was not organized enough to my liking. I often had times where I wanted to attend multiple classes but they were taking place at one time. For example, two nine A.M. classes would pique my interest yet I could only participate in one and neither of them were offered at other times. Sometimes the session I wanted to go to would be completely full, so I’d scramble to fill my time with a different conference that ended up putting me to sleep.
I felt a strong sense of community while being in Boston. A group of teens, excited to learn, pens in their hands, coming together to hear experienced journalism teachers guide them. I sat next to a girl from California in one of my classes, and we bonded over the reason why we went on this trip. Losing the drive for something you were interested in feels very disheartening. I went on this trip to find another reason to keep writing and I can, without a doubt, say that I will keep on writing.
