By Aly Kallas and Nairi Nadjarian
The National Student Leadership Conference has created confidence among students and teacher assistants, according to interviews with five attendees of the 2021 summer session.
The NSLC sessions this week offer 16 different nine-day programs in subject areas such as medicine, cybersecurity, and journalism. Students choose which program to study in before arriving on campus. After choosing, high school students travel from all over the country to attend NSLC at American University and experience multiple hands-on activities, leadership sessions, and lectures.
Students said they were anxious to come because they were uncertain about being far from home, their programs, and making new friends. “When I first came to NSLC, I was extremely nervous. I felt like I was thrown into this new environment,” Carla Williams, a current Team Advisor, a leader for current students, said. She was a rising senior at the time from Houston, Texas, who had never been away from home before.
“Coming to NSLC gave me a sense of comfort,” Williams said. She was positive she wanted to be in the journalism field because she felt so out of place compared to the STEM students.
Originally, she wanted to be a journalist focusing on the writing side but decided to participate in the broadcast journalism track. She said she immediately fell in love with the production side, and now as a college student is considering changing her major from journalism to broadcast. Williams said the program “definitely made me feel more confident” about her future career in journalism and that it opened up new interests.
Other students said they felt the same way. “We’re building, whether or not we realize it, we’re building so much confidence though we’ve only been here five days,” Daniel Rosato said, a student in the investigative writing program. As a rising senior, Rosato strives to be an international investigative reporter, and he joined NSLC to further his knowledge on reporting and news writing.
Rosato also shared similar anxiety of coming to a new place by himself but had a more positive outlook on the situation. “It’s a great change in scenery. We’ve all been in our corners for a year. Being here is a great change in pace for all of us,” he said. “So far we’ve discussed how to write leads and how to form stories and how to get interviews. I think that’s exactly what I need to know about what it takes to be a journalist.” Rosato said. He is excited about everything he has learned and how he can apply it to his future career.
Another rising senior, David Papa, is also in the investigative journalism course. He also shared the uncertainty he felt at the beginning of the program, and the confidence he has since gained. “If you asked me a year ago to do this I would have said no,” Papa said.
The program’s training, classes, and workshops end today, with students departing campus on Friday. For many, attending the program has also been their first real experience outside home in more than a year. “Through covid, we’ve been locked up for a year. It’s been awful,” Rosato said. “As soon as I saw the opportunity to leave, I took it.”