Name: Lauren Hertzler

Year: Senior

School: School of Media and Communication

Major: Journalism

Home town: Enola, Pa.

Why I chose Temple: "I always loved English and writing. In high school, I worked on the yearbook and our newspaper. I knew that I wanted to do something that had to do with writing when I came to college. My dad saw what my older sisters went through with debt, and he didn't want me to go through that, so I applied only to in-state schools. Temple had a really good journalism program. When we came to Philadelphia, as soon as I set foot on campus at Temple, I just knew I wanted to go here. I loved it. Being in the city and all the hustle and bustle was a huge thing. But I also wanted to be in a city to get good internships. My first internship was at the South Philly Review. They asked me to stay on board to free-lance. I've written numerous front-page stories for them. I also interned at the Philadelphia Business Journal. That was a fabulous experience too. I got exposure to the business world, which I hadn't covered before. This spring, I'm going to do an internship at the Philadelphia Inquirer."

Transformative moment: "I've had so many great experiences at Temple, but writing for The Temple News, the student newspaper, set me up for everything. It gave me real-world experience and great clips. Without that, I wouldn't have got my internships, and I wouldn't have gone to South Africa [where Hertzler produced a Mid-Atlantic Emmy-winning video] and I wouldn't have gone on to become The Temple News' chief copy editor.

A lot of people don't know that The Temple News is completely student-run. We do everything from the business side of the newspaper to the editing, the design, the photography, the writing.

It's definitely not a typical work load: I have classes, I have a freelance job (that's about 15 hours a week), I have writing and editing for The Temple News (about 30 hours a week), I'm the multimedia intern at Technically Philly and I have a paid student writer position for Temple's Office of International Affairs. No, I don't sleep much. But I can't imagine it being another way. It was 100 percent worth it. I think it's important to take full advantage of being in college and everything you can to get the most out of it.

The world of journalism has changed, but I'm not scared of not finding a job. I'm confident that all the skills that I've acquired here — from improving my writing skills to photography and video production — have prepared me for life after Temple."