Journalism

Tomorrow is my first day visiting RISSE this school year, and overall I feel really prepared to go in and start on my work! First and foremost, I need to make sure the subjects I had in mind for this project last year are still there and possibly scout out others to make sure I'm getting enough of them, since I really want to collect a variety of experiences. When I feel confident in the subjects I've chosen, I will talk to them about the project and give them consent forms to bring to their parents. I'm also planning on talking to the Rifat, the director, in person about my project; she and I have been in touch over email, and there are a couple things she wants to make sure we're on the same page about before I start my project. Because I am distributing consent forms and talking to Rifat, I won't be able to start interviewing right away tomorrow, but I know it will be a valuable visit in terms of determining subjects and beginning to get comfortable with them a

Since I've been in soccer season since September, I haven't been able to get to RISSE yet this year. (However, tomorrow, November 1, will be my first visit!) Therefore, my Signature work thus far has consisted of preparation. Firstly, since I anticipate that minors will be my primary subjects for interviews, I have written up consent forms for them and their parents to sign, which I will distribute when I get to RISSE. My off-campus mentor and a journalist at the Times Union both helped me with the writing process for these forms, and I am so grateful for their help! I have also been writing interview questions to ask the children at RISSE. So far, they mostly concern the emotional impact of fleeing your home country. I plan to ask questions like, "What do you miss about your old home?", "How often do you think about it?", "What's the biggest difference between America and your home country?" I am really interested in refugees' thoughts

September: write interview questions finalize consent forms October: go back to RISSE! distribute consent forms start interviews if possible if not possible to start interviewing, continue talking with children, taking notes, determining subjects November: if haven’t started interviewing yet, begin to do so continue also observing children and taking notes December: start compiling/analyzing information continue interviews start writing if it seems appropriate at all, maybe publishing an update or story in the Clock January: start investigating any trends that I notice in interviews and observations continue RISSE visits, keeping up with subjects February: continue research on these trends/issues start follow-up interviews based off this research continue RISSE visits March: start writing, if I haven’t already continue investigating (researching, interviewing, observing) continue RISSE vi

A year and a half ago, I got interested in the Middle East after writing a research paper about the West’s culpability for the comparatively lacking rights for women in many majority Muslim countries. The region’s richness, beauty and complexity, as well as many Americans’ misperceptions of it, all draw me to its history, language, and people. Around the same time, I became interested in investigative journalism after reading two astonishing books: Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo and Show Me a Hero by Lisa Belkin. The former is a story that came out of the author’s visits to a slum in India over the course of several years. The story is beautiful and haunting and reads like a novel. The latter is an investigative report about the de facto racial segregation in Yonkers, NY, and the backlash that threatened to destroy the city when steps were taken in the 1990s to remedy it. My combined interest in the region of the Middle East and investig