Alec, a rising ninth grader at Explo at Wellesley, is enamored by journalism and its role in creating an educated and informed society. He's taking Model U.N. and Criminal Investigations to strengthen his writing skills and get firsthand experience with presenting findings to an audience.
After my Criminal Investigations class today, I think it would be cool to be a crime scene reporter. Today in class we were given the freedom to make up a crime to simulate. We staged a mass murder and outlined each other in chalk like an old-fashioned crime scene, and we had the little yellow evidence markers and everything. We also had fake blood splatter from a lab we ran in the beginning of class and we put that next to the outlines. It was really interesting.
I already knew I wanted to be a reporter or a journalist or something similar. I really like to write and get stuff out there, spreading information. I work on the paper and help run announcements at my school. And I'm also taking Model U.N. here as my second course. It's all writing, language, debate — all kind of up my alley. I'm also doing A Cappella and Improv for two of my workshops because I like performing. I think performing and journalism and just informing people has a lot of applications. Crime is super interesting and also a little sad, so it's great writing material to begin with. And writing about crimes is helpful... but so is writing about good people. I feel like it's what I need to do, almost like my duty to everyone else, like I have that responsibility to get things out.
Liam Brooks