UAA students have once-in-a-lifetime experience at The Seattle Times

I'm a student here at UAA, and I am studying journalism. This past spring, I and three other students were invited to attend The Seattle Times' first annual Journalism Symposium.

The chance came through UAA’s Journalism and Public Communications department. The Seattle Times invited university students and accompanying mentors from the Pacific Northwest to attend the symposium on April 18 and19.

The Symposium was held at The Seattle Times newsroom in Seattle, Washington.

We flew into Seattle and arrived around 9 a.m. We were staying at The Level Hotel, which was directly across the street from the newsroom.

After a bite to eat at a small coffee shop and a short walk around the area, we arrived at The Seattle Times around noon.

Walking into the building, we were met with glass doors, stone walls and chic statues illuminated under warm lighting. Excited conversations between three other universities emerged from within the maze that was The Seattle Times newsroom.

Mingling ended when Stefanie Loh and accompanying Seattle Times staff introduced themselves. The packed room turned silent and attentive to what our soon-to-be mentors and questions panelists would ask.

The first day began with a tour of the newsroom and the different departments The Seattle Times manages. We were able to sit in on a pitch meeting for the next day's newspaper.

We then spoke with the mentor we were assigned the previous month.

My mentor was Seattle Times’ Project Homeless reporter Greg Kim.

In just an hour and half, he managed to help me understand more about my own writing and passions than I had realized — showing me how a recounting of those passions can make for the best article lead.

And to always be in search of the story you care for – because other people will want to listen.

I feel Kim was the best mentor I could have been paired with as I will take his advice with me throughout my career as a journalist.

Nearing the end of the day, we were split into teams of four with people we did not know. We were then instructed to pick a topic to report on from a written list. My team chose “how people feel about their neighborhoods.”

We were instructed to write two 600 word articles and have at least two interviews with strangers within a time limit of three hours. Our team of four decided to further divide into teams of two, where each team decided to have a different take on the same subject.

The day was finally coming to an end and after a six hour work day, four hour flight — having been awake since 1 a.m. with no coffee – I was ready to finally lay in bed.

The second day of the Symposium was full of question panels, exercises and real life, nerve-racking journalism opportunities.

The day started at 8 a.m. and began with a short debrief on what to do before going out to conduct man-on-the-street interviews with locals on the topic we had decided on the previous day.

My team consisted of myself and another student from the University of Washington. We decided to prioritize writing, so my partner and I split up to conduct interviews. Our goal was to find as many neighborhoods and people’s opinions on them as we could.

I absolutely dreaded the thought of going out – not only to talk to random strangers about their neighborhood – but to take that information and write a decent 600 word article within the remaining time of an hour and a half.

I awkwardly walked out onto the green field of a local park next to a lake pier. The park had people running with their dogs, stopping to watch the boats or to admire the obnoxiously loud geese.

The first person I saw — while nervously searching for a short story in a neighborhood I knew nothing about — carried an umbrella and a camera. When I approached the elderly man, he said he would talk to me only if I looked at the garden of flowers with him.

Of course, I would never deny an opportunity to watch flowers dance in the light wind. This man did not give me his name, but he was a kind and lively character for sure.

He told me of the community in Capitol Hill and how it is not as LGBTQ diverse as it once was, and his disappointment in that change. He was very open with his feelings of loss in the community and confided in me very heartfelt stories within the extremely short time I knew him.

My experience of meeting this man for five minutes unveiled an excitement to continue talking to four more people within the hour – which overruled my anxiety.

I went on to meet a man who carried his cat in a partly glass backpack while they stood on a bridge, overlooking the lake. He had fun stories to tell of his neighborhood and the love he had for his kitchen. It was nice talking to someone so calm and happy in the moment.

My subsequent interviews were just as exciting, informative and revealing as the previous, but time was running out.

My partner and I reconvened at a local boat shop and power-walked uphill back to the Times.

We decided that she would write the article while I attempted to research anything related to what was said in the interviews.

When we sat down and began to frantically write the article after transcribing, we realized our goal had been miraculously met. Of the five people I interviewed, each one was from a different part of Seattle and they all gave me amazing quotes to supplement with our article.

Somehow, my group and every other group finished their article on time. Our article may not have been the best we had ever written, but it is one that we were proud of. Afterwards, an editor looked over our story and gave helpful feedback.

I could finally relax.

The rest of the day was dotted with question panels and exercises. We talked about how to conduct an interview, how to pitch a story, how to manage, edit, freelance and so much more.

I flew home later that night. I felt I was a new person, a true writer and journalist with many stories to hear and tell in the future. I had never felt so passionate about the career I had only recently chosen for myself.

I’ve had my doubts about this career, but The Seattle Times, along with UAA’s assistance, laid to rest everything I had questioned in the last two years of my college journey.

I will never forget the opportunities I was given at The Seattle Times and I am forever grateful for the experience.