The second semester of her sophomore year Alyce Williams took 21st century journalism, a prerequisite class to join the school’s newspaper staff. Her junior year Williams joined the staff as a writer and was the  features editor her senior year. When she was younger, Williams had dreams of becoming a veterinarian. She has since changed her mind due to her years on staff and now plans to pursue a degree in mass communications and journalism. Williams’s goal is to have a career in broadcast journalism.

“Originally I wanted to be a veterinarian and before joining journalism I wasn’t as talkative or outgoing, “ Williams said. ”[Journalism] has helped me relate to people more and be more confident with speaking and it’s made me realize since I love talking so much why don’t I just get paid for it.”

With hopes to continue his journalism career after high school, Austin Ellis will attend Highland Community College looking into work with the media advisor and vice president of the college on Press Releases. If accepted Ellis would be the only writer at the school on staff. After Highland, Ellis plans to attend KU with the intent to pursue a double major in special education and journalism.

“I really enjoyed going to D.C.[this year] and competing there, but I really liked the year I was a writer,” Ellis said.  “Alyce and I would get up and switch stories whenever we got stuck. Then when we got bored we’d go back, and that’s how we survived our sophomore year.”

Erin Mumford

The responsibility of newspaper helped Kyle Tangari to grow as a person and a journalist in many ways. Although Tangari enjoyed his years in journalism, he is chosen  to study chemistry at Washburn University and possibly pursue a degree in law or a masters in chemistry. Tangari joined the World’s staff his freshman year as a reporter climbing the ladder to editor in chief his junior year.

“Journalism is a cool field that I like, but it’s just not a lifestyle I want,” Tangari said.

The World’s photo editor for three consecutive years, Loghan Finney hasn’t yet decided if she intends to pursue a career in journalism upon graduation. Finney has however been accepted to KU’s photo media program, where she plans to become a professional photographer. During her time as photo editor Finney became more outgoing and believes the quality of her work improved greatly.

“Being photo editor taught me a lot of responsibility and it’s helped my photography improve immensely and take initiative,” Finney said.