BOSTON UNIVERSITY SUMMER JOURNALISM ACADEMY

Location: Boston, MA

Program Delivery: Day, Online, Overnight

Age: 15-18

Gender: Coed

On campus dates: June 26 to July 14, 2023

Online: June 19-30; July 3-14; July 17-28, 2023

Categories: Writing, Academic, Performing Arts & Visual Arts

Sub-Categories: Journalism, Writing, College Experience, Communications, Photography, Sports Broadcasting

Cost: $1450 to $6000

Contact Info: busji@bu.edu

Website: summerjournalism.org

Interested in writing, photography or current events? Looking for an experience to inspire your college essays? Or hoping to explore a world-class city with new friends this summer?

If so, check out the Boston University Summer Journalism Academy. It’s a program created and run by Boston University, one of the country’s top journalism schools, where high school students:

• Learn from award-winning, working journalists — including two who have shared in Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting;

• Report on actual events around Boston or (for learn-from-home students) your hometown.

• Place stories with Boston’s Daily Free Press, one of the country’s top college newspapers; and

• Improve their writing, interviewing, and research skills — applicable for any major and career.

The academy offers two options: an on-campus, residential program over three weeks for students with journalism experience, and a learn-from-home program over two weeks for all experience levels. For students interested in photography, we offer a special photojournalism track for both.

What it’s like:

Classroom starts each day with a review of journalism fundamentals in a collegiate format. A universitylevel journalism textbook provides daily readings and writing assignments. Instructors cover: story ideas; sources and research; interviewing; writing leads; story structure; writing for broadcast and web; accuracy; libel; ethics; and more.

Newsroom, scheduled before lunch, provides time for students to apply what they learn in the Classroom to hands-on journalism assignments. Instructors — now serving as editors — divide students into small reporter teams, make assignments, and provide strategies for interviews and story angles.

Guest Talks offer students advice and insight from journalism experts in topics such as radio reporting, media law and studying journalism in college. On-campus students also visit city newsrooms to hear from reporters where they work, such as WBUR public radio and the Boston Globe.

Photojournalism-track students experience a similar schedule as other students but their focus will be on the basics of using a camera (provided for on-campus students) and capturing images to accompany news stories.