Storytelling Personal Statement

Storytelling is my passion. One moment I was reading stories, the next I was writing them. Everything from the smell of fried foods at the fair to a loud conversation at the dinner table inspired new stories. After years of scribbling in notebooks, I started my first cohesive story and told my dad I was going to be a writer. At first, he was supportive, but after a while, he told me the only way I’d ever be able to earn enough to make a living and write at the same time is becoming a journalist. I hated journalists; I imagined them all mean, old men and women smoking cigars and chasing people down with tape recorders and a notebook. Terrified of remaining in poverty for the rest of my life, however, I told him I would explore the industry. I joined the school paper

My life soon became a swarm of applications to journalism programs and internships. One day, after almost giving up on finding a program that didn’t exhaust every last dollar in my dad’s wallet, I found an internship at the San Diego Union-Tribune. When I applied to the program I expected to be taking coffee orders and stapling paperwork. I was incredibly wrong. Every minute of each 8-hour shift I spent interviewing, outlining, writing, and even producing videos. Throughout the program, each student would complete five projects, two of which, the first and the last, would be printed in the Sunday paper. The first project was difficult, but I accomplished it and tackled the next three with ease. The final project, a feature profile, was the one I anticipated to be my easiest project yet. It took two days working on the piece for me to go insane. My subject, a very PR experienced woman, had hijacked my entire interview, giving me an advertisement for her business rather than a feature story. Every morning of that last week I came in and scribbled on a white