Who you are: NBTB’s accepted students so far a talented, diverse, multicultural group

One of the nicest things about running Newsroom by the Bay is getting applications from all over the world, by students who are not only talented writers, but often remarkably insightful about life, writing, politics, and the future of journalism itself.

It’s also amazing to see applications this year from all over the world — Pakistan, China, South Korea and the Netherlands — as well as 16 states, from New York to California and South Dakota to North Carolina. 

While we want to respect your privacy, if you are an accepted student, we can tell you that your fellow acceptees include:

• writers working on cross-cultural websites connecting the U.S., Mongolia and Malaysia;
• actors, cello players, singers, and dancers of ballet and kathak, a classical Indian form;
• teens who swim, cheerlead, and play rugby, softball, baseball, soccer, tennis and basketball (and the list goes on);
• passionate readers of The New York Times, the short stories of Anton Chekhov, and “descriptive adjectives, exciting verbs, and salient visuals”;
• talented journalists who want to learn more about writing — editors-in-chief, morning broadcasters, webmasters and page designers;
• talented writers who have never taken a single journalism class, but can’t wait to begin with us.

We’re also inspired by the essays you’ve sent us. With her permission, here is one we received recently from Isabel Ullman, of Notre Dame High School in San Jose, Calif.:

” ‘No puedo alimentar a mis hijos con amor: I cannot feed my children on love.’ In an intimate discussion with my Spanish class, ‘Maria,’ a day worker, spoke with candor, transforming my image of immigrants. She told us how she had come to the U.S., desperate for economic sustainability, but in the process had to leave her children behind. She sighed as she admitted the difficulty with which she scrambles for jobs. When her arms would rather be around her children, they are busy wiping counters and vacuuming floors. But the hourly rate here, 10 times what she would make back home,  allows her to feed her children.  

“Suddenly I saw ‘Maria’ not as a generic illegal immigrant, but as a human with a pressing problem.  Each person, no matter their circumstances, has a story. Some stories are constantly bubbling up and overflowing from peoples’ lips. But many stories, like Maria’s, are suppressed, hidden in little crevices in the heart. It is these stories that need to be told, to wake society up to the humans behind the political issues.  I see journalism as a catalyst for change.”

Camp is still four months away, but we can’t wait to meet Izzy and all of our accepted students. Congratulations to all!