On Dec. 2, nine Journalism II students attended a conference at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. 

     The day began with a tour around the Karambelas Media and Communications Center at Wilkes, which featured a television studio, radio broadcast rooms, a newspaper room and more. 

     “The TV station was my favorite part because I got to experience it behind the scenes, see how it all worked and even got to try it out for myself,” junior Hailey Kelly said. 

     After the tour, students could attend two different workshops. The available workshops were for the school newspaper, The Beacon, the school’s student-run PR department known as Zebra Communications, the WilkesNOW TV studio, WCLH radio station and a speech and debate workshop. All of the workshops were led by Wilkes communications students.

     “Journalism is the nitty gritty, information packed stories that share what is going on not only nationally, but in your backyard as well. Developing young journalists to be successful and truthful in their work is important,” senior communications major Ariel Reed said. 

     Through the different workshops, journalism students also got to interact with students from other high schools to learn about their different communication programs and network with them. The conference concluded with pizza and drinks for the high school and college students to enjoy together. 

    “This trip helped me look at journalism from a different perspective, ” junior Kat Quinn said, “Although this isn’t going to be my career, it is a very good way to grow as a student, and I’m lucky to learn through these experiences.”