Zoi’ . Pronounced Zo-ey , meaning long life . Life to live beyond years of wisdom, power, emotional and mental stability.

Zoi Bascom, age 17 going into my senior year of high school. I love reading Wattpad stories and twirling. I plan to major in the medical field, but minor in politics. Over the years I have came to learn more about myself: I’m 5’2, I enjoy eating fruit snacks, my favorite show is Avatar, and my favorite movie is either Twilight or Divergent. I learned how to twirl a baton in 2021 and grew a strong love for it. I have a dog named Ari but we like to call her ” bear ” because she acts like a little bear. I used to write my own books but soon fell out of it when I realized writers block was a thing.

I have little to no experience when it comes to journalism. I did my school’s yearbook, but our yearbook isn’t the average teenage high school year books (lol) . We more so blogged about our experience than what the school actually is . Journalism seems cool especially because I love politics , kinda why I’m watching Scandal right now but also because sports entertainment is so cool to me. Athlete interviews, the inside scoop on a high school student getting offers in a sport he loves is so interesting to me and it’s an interesting story to tell . Writing has always been cool to me and I’d like to learn more about it . I heard there’s journalists positions in the White House like the people who write the New York Times , Vogue blogs , the presidents council speech etc ..

Sports wise I’m a lot more experienced there . I’ve been running track since middle school but soon stopped when covid hit , which was end of my 8th grade year and my whole freshman yea . Going into my sophomore year I wanted to start again but I knew my body wasn’t physically ready so I took my talents into dance, and started twirling my sophomore year and loved it . Baton twirling became a passion to me because not many girls do it, especially black girls at a majority black school so it was nice to try and now the team is still going . Twirling is my forever first love , but track has my heart as well .

Hey there! My name is Lauren and I’m starting my sophomore year of high school at The Paideia School. I was born and raised in Atlanta and know most of the city like the back of my hand. This past school year, I was a staff writer and part-time copy editor for my school’s newspaper. I wrote a couple of brief school sports articles at the beginning of the year, but then I found my calling in the opinion/editorial page of the paper.

Opinion articles are my favorites to read and to write because almost no one has the exact same views on everything. While I might read an article and disagree with the opinion that is being made, I think that it is important to see a variety of different views because no opinion is wrong. This past school year, I would find myself publishing articles to my school newspaper and then abruptly having a reader come up to me and tell me how much they disagree with me. Although sometimes a little rude, I like to leave the space open for everyone to share their opinions because I think that journalism is a great form of expression whether it comes from the New York Times or from Twitter.

I would describe myself as a budding true crime connoisseur as I am a frequent listener to true crime podcasts on Spotify. Unsolved murders are my favorite type of murders because I love being left with the question of “whodunnit?”. True crime is one of my more recent (as of a few months ago) interests and I am very excited to continue to immerse myself into the mystery of murder.

(I’m the one on the right)

Marin. The meaning of my name is “of the sea.” Although it seems as if I should embody my name, I actually dislike the ocean. The ocean is full of unknown and uncertainty which is not the most appealing to me. Ironically, I spend the majority of my afternoons in winter, in water, at the pool swimming for my swim team at my highschool, Oconee County High School. I live in Athens, Georgia, however, I was born in Houston, Texas on August 7th, 2009. When I was 2, my family moved to Athens, Georgia, and I have been here ever since. I am 13 and am going to be a freshman in Highschool.

I have almost no experience in journalism, but I enjoy reading the news and reading good articles. NPR, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, are my go-to’s for something to read. One of my favorite things to do is read, but I am not as fond of writing. I enjoy it, but not as much as reading. I think I want to have a career in law, which contains as a lot of reading and writing. I am not opposed to having a career in journalism, so I think this camp will be helpful in figuring out if I want to have a career in journalism or not.

I do 2 sports, swimming and tennis, almost polar opposites. Swimming is my fall/winter sport, and tennis is my spring/summer sport. Reading is also one of my other hobbies. My favorite books include, “Little Women,” “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn,” and “Native Son.” In addition to those hobbies, I like to collect records, play piano, and cook. I also have the best dog in the whole world, named after the “Star Wars” character, Obi. My favorite TV show has to be a tie between Gilmore Girls, and Modern Family. I can also understand and speak Mandarin, and I am trying to learn how to speak Tagalog.

Sadly, I do not embody the meaning of my name, but I believe that there is much more to the meaning Marin, than “of the sea”.

Hi! My name is Hunter Pitrak and I live in Roswell, Georgia. I go to Roswell High School. In the fall I will be a junior. I have two very annoying brothers named Trevor and Dylan, Trevor is 14 and Dylan is 11. We also have a dog named Dash, who has one eye (fun fact).

This past school year was my first time taking journalism, and I enjoyed it a lot. I enjoy writing news and sports articles. My teacher told us about this camp and I really liked the idea of it because ever since I moved to Atlanta I have become a big Georgia fan and found UGA as a school I really want to go to. I also wanted to do this camp to learn more about journalism and hope to become a better writer, as well as get to learn more about UGA as far as the campus and community.

I was originally born in Richmond Virginia, where I moved around a couple times when my brothers came along because the houses kept running out of room. When I was going into 3rd grade, my family moved to Tampa, Florida, where we lived for about four years. Then after that, we moved to Atlanta Georgia. I have to say, Georgia is probably my favorite place that I have lived. While I miss some of my best friends from Florida as well as Virginia, I am able to arrange plans to see them every once in a while. I think Atlanta is a great place to live and a great option for me and my family.

In my free time — whenever have some — I enjoy hanging out with my friends, as well as baking and going shopping.

I have tried just about every sport when I was younger, but softball has been something I have stuck with for a long time. I started playing when I was about 7, and I haven’t really stopped. My freshman and sophomore year of high school I played for my school, but this year I decided to try out flag football, which I am also having lots of fun with. I also do swim team for my high school in the winter, which I really enjoy.

I have done summer swim team ever since I lived in Virginia because my parents put me in it and I found out how much fun it was so I kept going back every summer. Now that I am 16, I was offered the opportunity to coach this summer, and that’s what I have been doing. It is so fun, and I really enjoy working with kids and teaching them to better their swimming skills. I also work at a Barbecue restaurant that my neighbor owns, which has become a great job for me. I love the people I work with, and I find working in restaurant teaches great life lessons.

UGA has been a top college choice for me ever since I moved here, and I hope to get in, but if not I know wherever I end up will hopefully work out for me!

Hi, I’m Naima Salvary, but my close friends call me Nai. I’m from Birmingham, Alabama. I go to the Alabama School of Fine Arts, I’m 14, and I’m an incoming freshman. At my school I’m a creative writing major but I wanted to explore different writing styles. Something interesting about myself that I like to tell people is that I’m a extremely picky eater. It’s not that exciting, but it’s something everyone around me notices sooner or later.

I don’t have much experience in journalism yet, but in this incoming school school year I plan to take the journalism and yearbook courses my school offers. I’m very interested in opinion pieces and entertainment. This past school year I had to do alot of research for papers and cite my sources which has also peaked my interest in Journalism.

Having a voice, and spreading awareness about topics is very important to me, and I feel like journalism is the perfect way to express that. Since I was little I’ve always been about speaking up and standing up for things that are important to me. I’ve always thought journalism is a great tool to inform and bring attention to important causes.

Writing in general has always been a huge part of my life and is probably the thing closest to me. Discovering different styles of writing such as journalism is important to me. I want to be able to find my voice.

My name is Azareen Victoria Dau (I go by Azi) and I’m almost 14 years old. I was born in Washington, D.C. but moved to Richmond, Virginia when I was 6. I’m a rising freshman in the IB Program at Tucker High School. I was also in the IB Program at my middle school.

I was in my school’s yearbook and journalism leadership advisory in 7th and 8th grade. My favorite things to write are opinion, entertainment and news pieces. I’m especially interested in current events because I’m enthusiastic about activism and making a change. In 6th grade I co-began a student advocacy club. We continued it through 8th grade and focused on making smaller changes in our school.

One interesting thing about me is that I love linguistics (the study of languages) and international affairs. I’ve traveled my whole life, discovering my passion for learning about different languages and cultures. I’m actively learning four languages: Persian (I’m Persian), Spanish, French and Greek. I want to keep traveling and learning as much as I can because I think it might be something I want to study in college.

This is a picture of me and my best friend at a Five Below after a sleepover.

This is a picture of my dog, Coco. This was from her first birthday, last year.

Hello everyone! My name is Amanda Michaels, but I go by Mandie. I live in Milton, Georgia, and attend Milton High School. I will be a senior in the fall, with an interest in journalism and media production. I have always loved to creatively write, whether it be fiction stories, school papers, or just what I am feeling in the moment, and feel that I can write better than I can speak. I do not have a lot of experience in journalism, but what sparked my interest was a class I took in my junior year called AP Seminar. In AP Seminar, we had numerous projects and papers on different topics of interests, which allowed me to choose whatever I wanted to write about and dive deeper into unknown subjects. Although it was very stressful, it ended up being my favorite class.

I have played tennis since I was 7, starting in Long Island, New York. However, Long Island was not huge on tennis, and I rarely played until I moved to Milton in 2015. From there, my neighborhood had tennis lessons from Wes Adams, who is still my coach to this day. I have played numerous leagues including ALTA, USTA and T2, and played on my high school JV team my freshman and sophomore year. I still play club tennis, and volunteer to teach at my mom’s tennis academy for older women. Tennis has always been a huge part of my family life, and I hope to attend a college where I can play club tennis and continue it further.

Whenever I have free time, I usually will be with my friends, either playing video games, shopping, or getting food. I have two cats, Bruce and Cookie, whom I have had since I lived in New York. I also have a sister, Megan, who is 14 and entering high school this year. She is one of my best friends, and we always do everything together. My mom and dad are the people who inspire me the most, and are also some of my best friends. That might sound lame, but my family really is great. Whenever I am busy, it is usually because of my job. I work as a hostess and a busser at Campania, a small Italian restaurant. My favorite thing about working there is the people, who I probably talk to more than I actually work.

UGA has always been one of my top picks for college ever since I moved to Georgia. But, even if I do not get in, I know everything happens for a reason and there is a college out there for me!

Hey everybody, my name is Charles Alexander Cook, but I just go by Alex. I have lived in Stockbridge, Georgia, which is in Henry County. However, I was born in Clayton County, where my mother lived the majority of her life. I have lived in the same house in Stockbridge for my entire life and I wouldn’t change a single thing about it. The house has four people living in it, my mom, dad, younger brother and myself. When I was in fourth grade, I switched from my 40-person school and started at Eagles Landing Christian Academy, or ELCA. This August, I will start my senior year at ELCA and I’m so excited for it.

While I have never had the opportunity to take a newspaper or journalism class, I have taken five different AP classes dealing with writing, history and research. Some classes include :AP Lang, AP Seminar, and AP United States History. I absolutely love writing and the creativity aspect of it. The rants or opinions that you can easily input through your words is one of the coolest things about writing to me. I think my personality is very easily shown through my writing and I think that is why journalism interests me. I can talk about anything through my personal lens and paint a picture that is beautiful and enjoyable to myself and other readers.

Something interesting about me is that I am a manager/assistant coach for three sports and four different sports teams. At my school, I help manage the football and baseball team and I act as an assistant coach for the varsity/j.v. basketball teams. I also act as an assistant coach for the Georgia Jayhawks, an independent AAU team out of Jonesboro, Georgia.

I absolutely love movies and will talk about any movie, any genre with anyone. Movies are another part of writing that interests me as the scripts go beyond just words and can make or break a movie and its quality. However, through all of my interests and passions, my favorite thing I do will always be related to basketball. Since the moment when I watched my first NBA game to the day I shot a basketball, I have been completely in love with the game.

Thanks so much for listening to a little bit about me!

Hi! I’m Burhann, I’m 16 years old, and I go to Buford High School (which is also the city I live in). I don’t have any journalism experience but I have been writing and a lover of reading since I was a little kid. I’ve been in the process of writing a coming-of-age novel for about three years, in which the plot of it has changed a total of five times and I’ve only started truly writing it for the past four months.

Journalism is not the major I plan to have in college, as I am more interested in literature and biochemistry. However, I’ve been in love with the news and media for years, and due to an early and ongoing obsession with Gilmore Girls (Rory specifically), I’ve always had an interest in journalism. Every now and then I’ll get the urge to write about the things around me and whenever I happen to come across a new interest, I express it through my writing. From think pieces about complacency in society and people in power to analyzing my favorite things in media, I’ve always inadvertently had a hand in journalism. Now, I want to become more confident in my own voice and the things that I have to say.

An interesting thing about myself is that I am a frequent lover of all things media, in which I go through phases of. Currently, I’ve been thrown back into my 10-year-long obsession with Spiderman, as Across the Spiderverse came out two weeks ago. I’m also interested in 2000’s – 2010 bands, and softer music in general (The Cardigans, 5sos, Lana Del Rey, Deftones, Leith Ross, and Faye Webster), and lastly a deep dive of anarchism/radicalism (which may have been a direct result of seeing Spider-Punk on my screen for the first time, but is not the only reasoning as to why I’ve taken interest).

Another interesting thing about me is that I love school and learning in general. I believe that by wasting educational resources, we’re doing a disservice to not just ourselves, but our curiosity and society as a whole. This school year, I fell in love with science, or more specifically, chemistry, and realized that I would also like to know more than two languages. Currently, I’m intermediate in French and am attempting to self-teach Spanish with the goal of being language certified in both by the time I graduate high school. I’m also on an all-AP ELA track in high school and plan on being dual enrolled the summer before senior year, with the goal of being able to skip my first year of college.

I believe that there is so much to be learned and with so little time on Earth, why waste the resources and materials handed to us? And while I could write of how the education system isn’t set up to support everyone and is at times set up for students to fail in terms of standardized testing and unavailable resources, this is about me, and I have thankfully always been in places where education and resources are always readily available to me. Due to growing up with immigrant parents who were nowhere near as fortunate as I am, I was always pushed to explore and take advantage of the resources given to me. So when a teacher pulled me aside, in March 2022, and told me that there was a creative writing camp she’d believe I would enjoy, I took advantage of that. Fast forward to today, June 19, 2023, I am here for the second year in a row, but this time to explore my own voice and what I am capable of.