MHS Student Media sent seven students to Kansas University to the Kansas Scholastic Press Association conference.
“I also went last year when we also went to KU in that path for me was more kind of newspaper focused,” senior Alejandra Parma, feature editor, said.
The conference consisted of mini-sessions led by journalism teachers from a variety of Kansas schools, professors from area colleges and journalism professionals. KSPA collaborated with many in Kansas. KSPA collaborates with many different companies like Walsworth, Jostens and Varsity.
“There’s a bunch of different [sessions] to choose from,” senior MK Mallean, staff writer, said. “I went to two [sessions] about interviews, one about storytelling and creativity and decision making, and one about Photoshop.”
Students could learn about many different subjects from how a yearbook is laid out to how to incorporate journalism into other fields.
“It really changed my mind on what I want to do in the future, because I was focused on medicine and health, but now I kind of want to incorporate journalism into it,” senior Madison Springer, Blue M editor-in-chief said. “It really persuaded me to push more into journalism.”
From learning how to improve their work in the classroom, to showing how journalism is everywhere. The conference helps students with many different aspects of journalism.
“I had a lot of fun just listening in on the different kinds of people who were there and the different speakers, and everybody had their own kind of voice and they were all very different, which I found exciting,” Mallean said.
MHS Student Media travels to a number of events like KSPA that broaden students’ understanding of journalism. These events can vary in content but always have that warm welcoming feeling to students. The trips can lead to students getting to see other parts of the states and the journalism field. Students have also gotten the chance in previous years to attend a Royal baseball game. Some of the conferences include Freeze Frame, Sports Journalism in a New Era, and KSPA Writing Consts: A recipe for success.
“[The speaker said] the best thing they can do is learn how to write, because as long as you can write it can really secure you any job and any position, if you can write well,” Parma said, “because if people know you can write well, you can do anything, because you can speak, you can write stories, you can do anything, really.”
The next conference that MHS Student Media is going to is the national convention in Nashville in November.
“I recommend, [if] Nyp lets you go, [then] go. Because there’s so many sessions that you can go to and so much that you can learn,” Parma said.
