The University of Iowa is known for their writing program as well as their journalism department, and this year hosted a journalism conference on October 24. AHS had eighteen representatives from our journalism department attend. Junior Fletchor Toft was among the participants and said, “The IHSPA conference was super intuitive and very engaging, the environment was great and all the sessions I took had taught me something new.” They learned new skills, concepts and an overall new understanding of the importance their journalism class can have on their future experience.

Atlantic High School journalists left at 5 a.m. from the parking lot to make their way to the University of Iowa Memorial Union, Iowa City, where the conference was held. The first session included all schools in the main room where a speaker showed her talents as well as where the Iowa University Journalism program has impacted her life. 

Next the conference segregated into small sessions. Here they capitalized on different parts of journalism and students chose what they were interested in learning about. Within the sessions different speakers and professors engaged with students, allowing the opportunity to ask questions and meet new people.

Students were allotted 3 time slots to go to sessions lasting around 30 minutes. The conference offered opportunities for each subsection of journalism. Atlantic journalists attended sessions for photography, writing strategies, leadership, social media, marketing and many others. 

Sophomore Jordan McCool was along on the visit as an Intro to Journalism student. He said, “I enjoyed my time greatly during all of my sessions, but ‘I’m in charge and I’m an introvert. Now what?’ Was my favorite session.” McCool’s reasoning for this being his favorite includes the community he felt as he was “in a room with relatable people” and learned tactics on how to be a good leader. McCool also met a professor, David Schwartz. He said, “the professor David Schwartz is an extremely nice and funny teacher who managed to help us connect.”

Toft and Junior Ellie Butler found interests within the sessions they attended as well. Butler has an interest in photography and learned new aspects from a professional photographer. Butler said, “She showed us pictures she had taken. I love how she showed us two very similar pictures but how one is better than the other because it tells a story. The way people are angled and their expressions all do that.” On the other hand Toft visited a broadcasting based one. He said, “my favorite session was the broadcasting one with DITV. We got to see their broadcasting studio (which was very nice) and we were introduced to a lot of cool broadcasting tech.” Each student attended the same conference but had personalized experiences with the sessions. 

The campus was another key point of the conference as students were able to explore and find lunch. Butler said, “What I enjoyed about the campus was that it felt very welcoming and the people seemed very nice.” Students found lunch of all types around campus. McCool said, “I stopped at a Jimmy John’s to eat lunch before going to Target, where I got some pretty cool heart-shaped sunglasses. Fletchor also stopped at a Starbucks right before we went back to the school itself.” Other students stopped at Chipotle, Noodle Company, Pancheros, Insomnia Cookies, etc. Overall the campus was a big hit for the students and gave them an insight to college life. 

The conference occurs yearly giving this opportunity to all high schoolers to join and attend. Toft said, “This was an awesome experience that offers a lot for a journalist, especially one just starting out, to really start investing time into journalism. You get to choose what you do and learn about some things within journalism that interest you. This is a definite recommendation to any student in journalism.”