Hollyn Randolph - Hampton University Short Course 2007

Click on image to enlarge or download: Hollyn RandolphI was always one of those children who wanted to be everything - an attorney, a doctor, a politician, maybe even a figure skater. You name it, and I'm sure I thought about it. My elementary years were filled with aspirations of being the first female football coach, owning my own company and being on the Supreme Court. It makes me smile now when I look back at those moments. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I realized I could do all these things and more.

After discussing my college plans with a teacher at my high school in Temple Hills, Md., and confiding in her about my indecisiveness, I told her of my childhood filled with moments of random career changes. She thought for a moment and said, "Well, maybe you should be a journalist."

"I do not want to be a journalist," I thought. "I want to die rich."

"A journalist is a crafty profession," my teacher continued, "one that is taken for granted but very necessary."

I don't know why, but I decided to go with it and pursue journalism. Now, I'm a sophomore at Hampton University, in Hampton Va., and I finally realize what she was saying. Journalism may not seem like an important craft to some; however, it is. Being able to communicate to and for the world is a skill that the average person does not possess. It takes a certain type of person with the right will and drive to do it.

As an intern here with the Scripps Howard Foundation, I reminisce about my elementary days when I wanted to be everything. I now know that, through journalism, I can. I can expose wrongdoing to the people, I can be a coach and root my team on and I can be a doctor trying to heal, all the while being a journalist.

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