My freshman-self wouldn’t have thought of going into journalism during college. Sure, I liked to write. Heck, I even considered being an author as a career choice. But as an Asian American with immigrants for parents, I knew the option to pursue journalism was a choice that would be looked down upon by the older generations of my family, who encourages me to pursue something more medical in order to attain money. And throughout my four years of high school, that's what I mainly considered my career choice to be. But even after I took AP science classes, I wasn’t enjoying myself. As I cram and study chemistry and biology, I realize that I don’t find it worthwhile to learn about. I even volunteered at the Memorial Southwest Hermann Hospital, hoping that getting the experience within a hospital would allow me to prepare myself when I grow older. But as I constantly help nurses and patients, I realized that the medical field was a taxing job, something that I would feel burnt out of. Despite my burnout with science throughout high school, there was one thing that I found myself enjoying daily: yearbook. Throughout my time in yearbook, I gradually began to appreciate journalism and the art of interviewing. I believe I found my journalistic experience not when I became the story editor of yearbook, but when I took control of my school’s Humans of New York-inspired photoblog, Humans of Kerr. It’s a project that tells the story from students and teachers at my school. One of my favorite stories revolved around a freshman who has to decide whether or not he could give his alcoholic father a chance in changing and becoming sober. Another revolved around a freshman who is still in shock over his grandmother’s death, as he reminisced about the memories he held with his grandmother when he visited Bangladesh. These stories are personal and intimate, it allows for people from school to have a better understanding of who a person is and for these stories and ideas that are kept in silence most of the time to be shared. People just want someone to hear what they have to say, but they don’t know who to tell. I begin to realize what it means to interview as a journalist. Interviewing isn’t just something to get a story out of people, it’s a skill, and it’s one skill that I want to continue perfecting. With that being said, this is the type of local journalism project I would pursue. Just going around Houston and talking to someone, anyone. Sure, interviewing students is great, but they don’t have that much experience to tell. It’s very limited. On the other hand, actual adults, people who have years of experiences and memories to share, those are the type of people I would interview. Although I have to admit, this isn’t that important to the community. It’s not some groundbreaking journalism story about the coronavirus or some juicy, deep story about the mayor, it’s just stories from regular people with lives. But I think that can be something new for a local newspaper joint such as the Houston Chronicles. Something where people can read about a person from the Greater Houston area and learn something new. Whether it would be posted daily or weekly in the papers or online, it would be a good read for those interested. It’s not just a singular story that’s worthy of being told, but a collection of interesting and special stories shared by people with faces and lives. I want to continue interviewing as a journalist. Yearbook was a stepping stone for me to become a future journalist. I want to do more than interview students. I want to go out there and dig deep into stories from people, whether they are political leaders or just normal people with a story to tell, I want to cover their stories. With the funding of this scholarship, I would be able to use it in order to help pay the hefty tuition and dorm fees of the University of Texas at Austin, a school I believe will be of great help when it comes to the numerous opportunities it holds for inspiring journalists such as me. With this scholarship, I’ll be one step closer to becoming an actual journalist.