I thought I would change things up a little bit this week. As a senior in college, I am looking for what’s next as I pursue a life as a sports journalist. The following is my personal statement included in my application for graduate school at Northeastern. I am extremely proud of this piece and wanted to share it.
As a junior in high school, I found myself in a journalism class to fulfill a general education requirement. At the end of the class, I knew where the next years of my life were headed: doing anything possible to work in a sports related field in Boston, the city I have come to love. Becoming a media innovation graduate student at Northeastern can be the culmination of that goal I set for myself five years ago.
Sports have always been my passion. Since I was a little kid I have, read, listened, and watched countless hours of sports media coverage, a majority of it coming from Boston and their four major sports teams. I always knew I wanted to be in sports, but it was not until that class as a junior did I realize in what capacity: as a journalist.
That same year I underwent an experience that honed in where I wanted to live and what I wanted to do. A one week vacation in Boston in 2013 took a very wrong turn. It reshaped my life and my future aspirations by giving me a sense of reality and of what the world is like beyond my small-town life in Northern Maine. It laid out my career path on a silver platter. It allowed me to experience what sports could do for a healing community. That week in Boston changed my perspective on the world and it gave me a sense of what I wanted to become. It was the week of the Boston Marathon Bombings.
The Wednesday after the Monday bombings, my family and I had tickets to see the Boston Bruins. It was the first time the city of Boston came together after the tragic events. The moment that I remember from this experience is the upwards of 18,000 people coming together to sing the National Anthem. Sports created that memorable moment. I knew what I wanted to do: to be able to inform and entertain people about something that allows people to escape, even just a little bit, from the grind and misfortune in the world. In the world’s most resilient city.
On my path to attain my goal at Husson University and area jobs and internships, I have gotten the chance to produce sports radio shows, write sports blogs, and do some non-sports related reporting. There’s no question I am in the right career path. During my senior year, I also found myself looking and thinking of ways to not just be a part of sports media, but change sports media. The media innovation graduate program at Northeastern University would give me the opportunity to do that.
The media innovation track at Northeastern will allow me to work beyond the journalism skills I gained at Husson University. It will allow me to work with data and the sports equivalence of data – stats. It will train me in the digital side of the field – which is really the future of sports journalism. It will allow me to work with video and audio and how that can enhance sport media. After leaving Northeastern, I feel as though I will have the needed skill sets to be able to pull out anything I need out of my backpack of skills in the competitive field of sport journalism. In sports terminology, I will have no weaknesses, and will enhance any team I am a part of with a variety of skill sets.
Whether it be working with advanced stats, coming up with my own data, or other types of media innovation, I feel as though the Media Innovation track at Northeastern will allow me to complete my goals: to work as a sport journalist in Boston, and not just enter the game, but change it.
