‘Busiest and best summer of my life’

Gallery • 4 Photos

Provided by Delilah Brumer

Senior Delilah Brumer sharpens her photography skills during a lesson at her WKU Xposure Workshop.

Early on in my junior year, I was determined to have an eventful final summer of high school. Eight weeks of internship and workshop experiences later, summer 2022 was undoubtedly the busiest and best summer of my life. 

My whirlwind summer started only hours after the last school bell rang on June 10. The morning after my junior year ended, I flew to Kentucky for the free Xposure Summer Journalism Workshop at Western Kentucky University (WKU), which I was selected for. 

At Xposure, I met 10 other eager student journalists, as well as veteran instructors and helpful counselors. We immediately got to work, spending our first day brainstorming story ideas and designing our workshop T-shirts.

Throughout the workshop, I wrote about the pandemic and teen mental health, took photos of WKU’s white squirrels, covered the impact of past tornadoes in the field, tried lots of new foods and made great friends. I also strengthened my communication skills, which I will use extensively while working for The Pearl Post this year.

At the end of the workshop, my peers and I received awards for our dedication and work. I received the Student Journalist of the Year Award and the Carter-Katayama scholarship. 

A few days after I returned home, I began a paid internship at the Los Angeles Times High School Insider. During the 5-week internship, I improved my writing skills and was challenged to structure my stories more creatively. 

The interns heard from expert L.A. Times journalists such as Steve Padilla and Doug Smith and we also honed our multimedia reporting skills. I now know how to edit audio and will apply this when helping with The Pearl Post’s Room 22 podcast.

L.A. Times foreign correspondent Kate Linthicum served as my one-on-one mentor, providing me with valuable advice and feedback on my articles. 

I’m most proud of my enterprise feature story on the Los Angeles Scrabble Club, which I presented during the internship showcase. This article allowed me to get out of my typical writing style and experiment with structure and language.

Throughout the summer, I drastically improved my leadership skills and my technical journalism abilities. I’m excited to continue leading and learning this year as the Newsmagazine Editor-in-Chief of The Pearl Post.