Miami Dade College students Tomas Monzon and Brayan Vazquez, who are members of the school’s newspaper, The Reporter, are on their way to Orlando to participate in the 2015 National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) Student Project during the organization’s Excellence in Journalism conference.
The event is scheduled from September 18 through 20.
The project offers 12 students nationwide an opportunity to receive a week-long training in multimedia journalism, including reporting for the convention website, The Latino Reporter Digital, creating a digital newspaper, a television newscast and radio programs.
Vazquez said he’s elated he was selected to participate in the conference to help expand his horizon in the journalism industry.
“It's truly a privilege to be part of this year’s NAHJ Student Project. I’m honored to partake in this great opportunity to learn directly from journalists, and allowing me to work on areas still foreign to me,” he said.
Vazquez, 20, has been with The Reporter for a year. He has written columns, news stories, taken photos and is currently working on the paper’s new online website scheduled to go live this fall. A 2013 graduate of Olympic Heights Community High School in Boca Raton, he is studying computer science at Miami Dade College’s North Campus.
Vazquez, who came to the United States from Mexico when he was 11-years-old, loves to engage in social issues that affect people of color such as the school-to-prison pipeline and the implementation of private correctional facilities that house undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and worldwide.
Monzon, 21, was the valedictorian at South Miami Senior High in 2012. During his high-school career, he worked with Teenlink South Florida for a year writing movie reviews for their print online publications. He also attended two workshops funded by the Down Jones Newspaper Fund, He graduated from MDC's Honors College in May and will be attending Florida International University this fall to study computer information systems.
“Through The Reporter, I learned and practiced editing, writing, interviewing, researching while combining different sources of information; these abilities will become invaluable assets in my future career as a journalist,” added Monzon built an impressive and varied portfolio while at The Reporter. He served as the paper’s forum editor, senior news writer and produced multimedia stories. Originally from Argentina, he arrived with his family to the United States in 2001 to seek refuge from a deteriorating economy in his homeland. Monzon aspires to work as a multimedia journalist for TIME or Newsweek as well as a computer systems technician for a government agency or private business.