The Online Courses I Took that Helped Me Advance as a Student Journalist
My mother has always taught me that learning doesn’t stop outside of the classroom nor when the school year’s over, which is why I’ve continued to fuel some curiosities in my brain by taking online classes.
I started in the summer of 2017 (when I was 13) by picking up coding. My older brother got me into it and I’ve never looked back. Fast forward to 2020 when I began taking Coursera courses on data visualization and social media habits. All of these courses have helped in one way or another as a student journalist, and I will go in detail about how they’ve done so and the benefits of taking these courses.
Computer Science
My programming journey began with Codecademy. The first language I had learned there was Java, and I recently completed their course on React.js. The entire list of Codecademy courses I’ve completed is as follows:
- Learn Java (July 2017)
- Learn Python 2 (December 2017)
- Learn HTML (January 2018)
- Learn Responsive Design (February 2018)
- Make a Website (May 2018)
- Learn JavaScript (June 2018; relearned January 2020 — August 2020)*
- *I decided to go back to JS since it would be crucial for Web Development
- Learn Swift (February 2020 — May 2020)
- Learn A-Frame (VR) (June 2020 — July 2020)
- Learn React.js (August 2020-January 2021)
It’s quite a bit for a teen with nearly four years of coding experience. As time has gone on and as I began researching colleges for their journalism and Computer Science majors, one thing has become evident: I can use this knowledge with journalism and become incredibly versatile.
A few months ago, I decided that I wanted to delve deeper into Front-End Web Development. I had learned the three fundamental languages for it and about some of the frameworks and libraries around it, including some great material on Medium. The only hurdle was learning about React.js. I spent most of August (the latter part of my summer break) taking Codecademy’s course, took a break to focus on my junior year of high school, returned to it in December, and finished it that same month. Lately, I’ve been reading up more on Next.js, a React framework used for enhancing websites. I’ve also completed a couple of projects on Frontend Mentor and coded my own personal site, hosting it on GitHub Pages.
Visualization for Data Journalism
Web Development wasn’t the only skill I picked up last year. I also took a course last summer called “Visualization for Data Journalism” offered on Coursera from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The course brought two of my passions together in journalism and Computer Science. I learned how to code different types of graphs and handle data. There was even a lesson on the right colors to use for them.
Covering the sports world where data and statistics are a major component of the beat, this gave me valuable skills that help me stand out from other aspiring journalists.
Ethical Social Media
I took another course on Coursera entitled “Ethical Social Media” from the University of Sydney. I learned about building identities on social media, how to use it effectively and the ethics behind it. It also taught me about strategies businesses use with social media marketing, which has helped my professional presence on Twitter.
With Twitter being crucial to journalism, this course helped me establish a professional persona on the platform where news comes out quickly.
Conclusion
All of these courses helped me advance as a student journalist by diversifying my skill set. Pairing computer science and Data Visualization with wise social media practices will allow me to add to my portfolio and expand the quality of my coverage.
