How do we save journalism? I started to answer this question in Saturday’s post with the promise I would continue to feature profiles of Millennial journalists I’ve gotten to know this year while helping out with the Journalism Certificate at Wheaton College. I believe 20something college students and recent grads are the hope and the future of the journalistic profession, so I’m showcasing a number of them here, on this blog, as daily miracles. Each and every one of the students featured has an amazing story to tell, starting with varsity-soccer-player-turned-aspiring-fashion-journalist Shelby Anthony, and continuing today with Nicole Spewak, a soon-to-be junior at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill. The news editor of Wheaton’s campus newspaper is headed to Germany this summer to work in the media with the Free University of Berlin.
“I want to use my writing to bring light to issues in the world that need addressing, or just to help people,” Nicole says. “Through writing, you can make a difference in the world.”
Nicole has been seizing writing opportunities left and right since her high school days, when she joined a writing club that took a retreat to climb a peak in the Adirondack Mountains. Professionally, she hasn’t come down since. The 20-year-old has written entire books of poetry, held a position as editor-in-chief of her high school yearbook, and currently serves as the Wheaton Record‘s news editor, landing front-page interviews with pastors like Francis Chan, a popular American author and pastor, most weeks of the year.
“Right now, I’m still experimenting, trying new things, and seizing every opportunity given to me in order to figure out how exactly I envision myself using writing in the future,” Nicole says.
During our class this semester, she played an instrumental role in driving traffic to our website, MillennialInflux.com, covering topics ranging from Millennial unemployment to entrepreneurship. Next year, as a junior at Wheaton, Nicole will serve as the Wheaton Record’s editor-in-chief, taking the reins on the print- and web-based publication starting in August.
And then? She’s not entirely sure what the future holds, but she is confident God will be guiding her steps.
“I know that if my focus is on doing what God has gifted me with, and what he’s called me to do, then he’s going to lay out my path for me. I definitely see God’s work in my life bringing me to study German, finding my roommate, in my work at the student newspaper, and finally in the opportunity I have to travel to Germany this summer.”
Click here to read a full profile of Nicole, “Writing to Change the World – What a Novel Idea!,” by Lauren Laskowski on MillennialInflux.com.