Welcome everyone.

Thank you for joining me on this journey to develop my skills as a journalist and publish my work. As a Journalism and Media Studies student at San Diego State University, I am thrilled to be given the opportunity and space to share my stories and dip my toe into the journalistic pool.

Throughout this semester, I will be working on a project to write a feature profile story and create a social media strategy plan around it. All my steps in between, as well as the final project, will be posted on this website so if you wish to keep following my progress, check here.

I am currently in the brainstorming part of my hero's journey with this final project. Some of the ideas for topics I have include Biden's climate bill, emotional intelligence in the workplace, and abortion laws that are no longer protected under Roe v. Wade.

Part of this project includes narrowing down my topic to the San Diego area. For my first idea, I want to discuss the local effects with local politicians and research how it would affect San Diego County specifically. For my second idea, I would consult local professors and experts in emotional intelligence and dive into how the local workforce is being impacted by this wave of new ideology. Finally, for my third idea, I would focus on the red areas of San Diego, specifically Coronado and Alpine, to see if they want to enforce restrictions or if they follow the national trend of red states upholding abortion rights.

If you have any suggestions or think one idea stands above all else, please let me know by using my email (on the about me page). I believe that part of what makes someone a good journalist is an ability and willingness to listen to their audience. I look forward to starting this process and developing my skills even further and hope you follow along to see my progress.

Hello everyone.

Thank you for joining me once again on this chronicle of my story project. I have made some decisions since my last blog post, including my topic of choice, my sources, and my possible media graphics. I am excited to finally share what I will be working on for the next three months.

I will be pursuing a story about Biden's aggressive climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, and focus on how it will affect San Diego specifically. The White House has made many claims that this new plan will expand clean energy credits, made the tax code fairer, build American clean energy supply chains, and lower health care costs. I want to examine if this bill will be able to accomplish this and if so, how it will affect San Diego either positively or negatively.

For my sources, I am excited to talk to Congressman Scott Peters, who represents San Diego and is a former environmental lawyer, as well as Mayor Todd Gloria, who just signed a climate action plan for San Diego. I will also confer with Dr. Matt Rahn and Kristin Larson, two employees at San Diego State University who are well versed in environmental science and sustainability.

With these expert sources, I also want to examine what needs to happen to make an impact in San Diego and if this bill will be enough. I plan to include graphs of current data on climate change, pictures of currently affected areas, and charts showing possible projective change in San Diego as a result of Biden's climate bill.

I feel very passionate about this project, and am thrilled to begin researching and understanding more about the Inflation Reduction Act and how San Diego will be impacted. I will update this page as I go and gather more information, so stay tuned if you are interested as well.

Hello everyone.

This week in JMS 430 we covered the topic of data visualization and how important these elements are to journalism. Infographics and images function as digestible data that help the reader's overall comprehension of the story you are covering. For practice, we reviewed high school dropout rates and I chose to focus on Sweetwater Union School District.

Out of all 16 high schools in Sweetwater Union School District, there are a total of 203 dropouts for grades 9-12 per year, a significant amount for one school district. And, while that only equals 6.1% of all dropouts for the San Diego County, it is a big enough number to warrant concern.

For more information on the dropout rates for San Diego County or prevention techniques, visit the San Diego Unified School District website.

Hello everyone.

Thank you for joining me once again for an update on my final story project. I am excited to say that, since my last blog post, I have finished writing my article.

As a reminder, I wrote an article on Biden's Inflation Reduction Act. Specifically, I focused on climate change and crises in San Diego and examined if the bill, which seems to target problems on a national level, would have an impact on the San Diego community.

This project was challenging because many of the sources that I wanted to talk to were unavailable for an interview. However, I did converse with Kristen Larson (the sustainability director for San Diego State University), Rachel Nakamoto (a marine science graduate student at Hawaii Pacific University), Izzy Kennedy (an SDSU senior and marine biology major), and Pamela Heatherington (a member on the board of directors for the Environmental Center of San Diego). They provided me with excellent information and helped me to round out my perspective on the reality of climate change.

I am so grateful for the experience this project has brought me. It has given me a chance to write on a subject that I am passionate about, to practice conducting interviews and searching for sources, and to build graphics and take pictures that will accompany my story.

I look forward to posting my completed story on this website. If you are interested in my work, or climate change in San Diego, stay tuned.