New York City is a marvelous place filled with exotic foods, magnificent buildings, and endless adventures yet to be taken. It’s an urban jungle that has everything to offer to its visitors. The city attracts lots of young, creative, and passionate people to seek new careers and start new beginnings.

While in attendance at the Fall Conference Columbia Scholastic Press Association at Columbia University, sixteen peers and I took part in many workshops that enhanced our knowledge about journalism. These workshops included sessions such as news writing, photography, and visual storytelling. As an aspiring journalist, I found these workshops very informative and beneficial.

During one of the workshops, Confessions of Former Journalism Nerds, a panel of four successful journalists who live and work in New York City, spoke about their pasts and what they have done to get themselves to where they are today. Throughout the session, the moderator, Mike Simons, asked the panel many questions about their careers and certain paths they took throughout their education. One of the questions he asked was, “In your final years of high school, did you picture yourself where you are today?” Each of the panelists’ responses was the same–not one of them thought they would end up in the most populated city in the United States. I found their responses to be shocking. They went into detail about their experiences. Each panelist explained how they all grew up and attended college in different states across the country, put in tremendous amounts of effort at numerous jobs, and strived for greatness each day. In the end, all of them were attracted to the grand city of New York to seek new opportunities. Lindsey Kupfer, one of the panelists, gave a piece of advice to the audience, which was to “keep writing and do the things that you love.” I found this to be very inspiring and interpreted this as when you continue to improve upon the things that make you happy, doors will open and present you with a wide array of opportunities that create new beginnings.

The streets of New York are filled with people’s creative talents. Their artwork along buildings and subway walls create a picture of new opportunities waiting to be found. The people of New York don’t just create these magnificent pieces of work to let thousands walk by each day, they do it because it makes them happy and will hopefully benefit them in the end. For the remainder of the trip, we visited and walked through many scenic parts of the city, such as The High Line, Little Italy, Times Square, and Bryant Park. At these locations and many more, I captured pictures of artwork that stood out to me and created a story just by looking at them.