Everything You Need to Know About the Dow Jones New Fund

If you are a high school student looking for ways to improve your college application profile so that you can get into the college or university of your dreams, one fantastic way to do that it so makes sure that your extracurricular activities jump off the page. The right extracurricular activities can help you impress college admissions counselors at even the most prestigious schools. If you are a student who is passionate about journalism, writing and the way that the world gets its news, one fantastic extracurricular to consider taking part in is the Dow Jones News Fund.

For high schoolers who are looking for new extracurriculars to take part in, it can be hard to find the time necessary to invest deeply in all of the activities and programs that you are passionate about. Luckily, one of the best times of the year to take part in great extracurriculars is during the summer months. Here at AdmissionSight, we encourage all high school students to invest at least some of their summer months in extracurricular activities.

While there is surely something to be said about using some of the summer months to relax and recharge in order to be well-rested and prepared for the exciting school year ahead, there are also very important reasons why you should invest your time in extracurriculars that you are passionate about.

About the Dow Jones News Fund

Overall, the Dow Jones News Fund is dedicated to promoting careers in journalism in the digital age. Back in 1958, the Dow Jones News Fund was organized by editors at the Wall Street Journal. It is now geared towards inspiring and educating the next generation of impactful journalists.

Since its creation, the Dow Jones News Fund has gone on to educate young journalists who have gone on to cover some of the most important moments of the 20th and 21st centuries. Among those alumni are the founders of the National Association of Black Journalists, the Online News Association, and other industry leaders who are helping to create the modern world of journalism and reporting.

The Dow Jones News Fund offers fantastic summer workshops for students who are considering a career in journalism. In these summer workshops, students get to enjoy the intensive, real-world experience while working alongside professional journalists and award-winning journalism educators.

In order to maintain the spirit of encouraging greater diversity in the world of journalism and news, the Dow Jones News Fund especially encourages students from underrepresented and diverse communities to apply to their summer programs.

News Fund Workshops

The Dow Jones News Fund supports a number of summer workshops located all over the United States that are meant to inspire high school students who may face certain barriers when it comes to pursuing a career in journalism.

Funded significantly by the highly impactful Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, these workshops are geared towards helping journalists concentrate on health and wellness topics as they learn to report and write for a specific audience, shot, and edit video for multi-media platforms as well as take and edit photos.

High School Workshop Directory

The Down Jones News Fund holds high school summer workshops in over 30 states every year. The primary goal of these summer workshops is to help students and educators develop the latest reporting, publishing, and teaching skills.

If you are interested in attending a Dow Jones News Fund summer workshop, here is a directory of some of the top programs available for high schoolers to get you started on the information gathering process to figure out whether or not any of them are right for you.

Alabama

Multicultural Journalism Workshop is held at the University of Alabama campus for 10 to 15 students and emphasizes the importance of multimedia reporting, writing, editing, graphics, photography, product, and basic communication skills.

Long Weekend Summer Camp is designed to teach creative and efficient ways to communicate through school newspapers, newsmagazines, yearbooks, literary magazines, broadcast programs, and digital media. This program is specifically geared towards getting students excited about college life and expand their interest in school news and media.

Arizona

Andy Harvey Broadcast Journalism Camp is an intensive workshop that is aimed towards training high school students in journalism and broadcast media. The one-week program takes place on Northern Arizona University’s campus and offers students a chance to dive deeply into pursuing journalism as well as get a taste of campus life on a bustling university campus.

Cronkite Summer Journalism Institute offers a number of different two-week intensive programs that offer students hands-on experience when it comes to reporting, social media, web production, shooting and editing videos and photos, and more. Offered summer programs deal with journalism and mass communication, social media and innovation, sports news and broadcast, and more.

Arkansas

Arkansas Soul Travel Writing Program is a two-week summer program that is aimed to train young writers on how to reach and connect to diverse audiences. The program is a structure in order to help students learn about core journalism and PR skills including digital content and promotion, photography, video production, interviewing, and more.

California

Annenberg Youth Academy for Media and Civic Engagement is a free month-long summer intensive program that is held at the USC campus. Students grades 10, 11, and 12 are welcome to apply. Students enjoy training from professional journalists and gain access to USC’s Media Center.

Grammy Camp is a five-day summer industry program that is geared towards the industry of music journalism. The Grammy Camp staff as well as music professionals and industry professionals offer participating students valuable insight that gives them a great chance of finding success in their chosen career.

Newsroom By the Bay is a program held at the beautiful campus of Stanford University and offers classic in multimedia, climate science, global and political journalism, and more. Students also get the chance to produce and publish to websites during their time.

Connecticut

Connecticut Health I-Team’s Multimedia Journalism Workshop offers select high school students the chance to learn about investigative journalism and develop skills in that field. Students get the chance to focus on multimedia storytelling, including how to report and write stories, how to use social media to report and promote stories, and how to produce video material.

District of Columbia

Discover the World of Communication teaches high school students how to build a digital portfolio, write a script, shoot and edit the film, and write news stories like professionals. The courses are taught by faculty at the American University School of Communication with students also getting the chance to learn from hands-on trips to places like the studios of NBC4, WTTG Fox 5, NPR, and ESPN Radio.

Al Neuharth Free Spirit and Journalism Conference is available to high school juniors from each state to attend an all-expenses-paid trip to this journalism conference in downtown, D.C. On top of getting to attend, students also receive a $1,000 scholarship to the college of their choice.

Florida

University of Florida Summer Media Institute takes place at the campus of the University of Florida in Gainesville and gives students the chance to learn from hands-on opportunities where they learn about what it takes to be successful in the always-changing news media industry.

Poynter High School Journalism program teaches high school students interested in pursuing a career in journalism the chance to become better writers, photographers, and multimedia users through learning from local journalists. The one-week workshop gives students the chance to hone their skills and learn about the importance of journalism in a functional democracy.

Illinois

Medill-Northwestern Journalism Institute is one of the most prestigious journalism programs in the United States and its summer program offers high schoolers the chance to gain practical experience in the field while also getting a taste of campus life on Northwestern’s beautiful campus in Evanston, Illinois. The program covers various aspects of journalism such as reporting, writing, and editing for print, broadcast and digital media, editorial, news columns and blogs, news and feature photography, and much more.

Indiana

Ball State University Journalism Workshops which is located on the Ball State campus is a uniquely structured workshop that offers workshops that helps students hit the ground running when it comes to pursuing scholastic and professional journalism. BSU Journalism Workshops has set major trends when it comes to teaching about the broadcast, news, web, yearbooks, social media, mobile journalism, and more.

Iowa

Iowa Summer Journalism Workshop takes place on the campus of the University of Iowa, which boasts one of the most prestigious writing programs in the United States. Students involved are divided by various topics including photo, design, yearbook, investigative reporting, editorial leadership, and personal writing.

Maine

Institute for Environmental Journalism – Maine Session offers high school students the chance to learn from award-winning journalists and instructors and immerse themselves in climate science and journalism. Students spend every afternoon reporting and producing an original piece of publishable journalism that they complete by the end of the two-week program.

Massachusetts

Sports Broadcasting Pre-College Program is a two-week program at UMass Journalism. Here, students get to learn about the basics of sports broadcasting the schools state-of-the-art broadcast studio. They also learn about important subjects such as idea generation, game prep, interviewing, scriptwriting, camera work, video and audio editing, and on-air presentation.

New England High School Journalism Collaborative Summer Workshop offers students the chance to work with professional journalists and reporters, editors, and designers from New England news organizations during this summer workshop. They also get the chance to write and edit for their own newspaper and produce multimedia projects for the website.

Michigan

MIMPA Summer Journalism Workshop gives students the chance to spend five days on the Michigan State University campus in Lansing, Michigan to work with top journalism instructors. The goal is to help students become better writers, explore print or digital media creation, and build overall confidence.

Minnesota

ThreeSixty Journalism News Reporter Academy is an intensive program for high school students in connection with the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of St. Thomas. The program is geared towards training and supporting the next generation of diverse thinkers, communicators, and leaders. Students learn about different opportunities in media and learn from experienced journalists as well as set the stage for writing a reported story that will be published in both print and digital versions of ThreeSixty Magazine.

Missouri

Media Now St. Louis is a day-camp experience that allows high school students to learn in the presented conference style. They offer over 100 different topics that students get the chance to learn about from leadership training to best practice for storytelling. Other topics include design, writing, photography, and video, and web design.

New Jersey

Princeton University Summer Journalism Program is over of the only programs of its kind that is offered completely free for students who are accepted. Over the course of 10 days on Princeton’s historic and beautiful campus, students get the chance to learn from professors, professional journalists, and Princeton alumni through different journalism workshops and lectures.

New York

CSPA Summer Journalism Camp is held at Columbia University in Manhattan and offers students the chance to improve their skills, rethink their publishing strategies, and take the personal media game to the next level. Students focus on either writing, editing, management, or advanced design during this five-day intensive.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma Institute for Diversity in Journalism offers high school students an annual workshop with the goal of exposing students to the world of daily journalism. Participants get the chance to research, report, write, video, and edit stories on a variety of different topics and news events.

Pennsylvania

Penn State Digital Journalism Camp is a five-day camp experience where high school campers will write, produce, and edit content while they work alongside and learn from seasoned professional journalists. Campers get the chance to further develop their skills in important things such as storytelling, photography, video, writing and social media as well as work with advanced technologies that will one day be widely used in journalism such as AR or augmented reality.

Why Summer Programs are important?

Now that you have a great idea about some of the many programs that are offered, you can start to do further research about the many summer journalism programs that are made possible thanks to the Dow Jones News Fund.

With that being said, you still may be interested in learning about why summer programs are important for high school students to take advantage of. In order to help you understand, we at AdmissionSight have broken down some of the top reasons that you should consider.

1. Summer programs allow high school students to keep their minds active and engaged during the summer months so that they can avoid the “brain dump” that can take place when a child finished the school year. Summer programs allow students to start up the next school year with a sharp mind rather than having to re-train their brains how to learn when the school year starts up.
2. Summer programs help keep kids active and allow them to learn important social skills outside of the structure of a classroom. As kids continue to spend more and more of their time on screens, getting the experience to interact with like-minded students and faculty is an important way to prepare them for the real world.
3. Summer programs build important self-confidence and a positive attitude amongst students who take part. In fact, studies related to summer programs show that the vast majority of students say that they were able to make new friends thanks to their experiences and the vast majority of parents say that they saw improved self-confidence in their child upon return from a summer program.
4. Summer programs allow students the chance to explore interests outside of school. Unlike extracurriculars during the school year which very often are connected to their school in some way (either because it is a sports team, school-sponsored program, etc.), summer programs allow students to get out of their comfort zone and invest their time in something that they either do not have the time to do during the school year or simply don’t have access to. It is a great way for students to get a better idea when it comes to what kind of degree they may want to pursue in college and what kind of profession they may be interested in after they graduate.
5. Summer programs give parents help as well. While the school year comes to an end in the spring, the work does not have the same summer vacation and parents often struggle to find ways to keep their kids busy and engaged during the summer months. Summer programs act as a form of highly productive and educational daycare so that your high schooler can remain active and healthy while you are off at work!

Hopefully, this quick breakdown has helped you better understand the incredible value that the Dow Jones News Fund offers high schoolers over the country. Now all you have to do is find out which programs fit you (or your student) best!