”The School of Advanced Journalism opens doors, you only need to knock”

I am writing this while thinking about the most inspired decisions in my life. I guess they were more than one, but there was one that changed me at heart. It is like some fabric got into the hands of a skillful tailor. It was year 2011, and I was in the graduate year at the State University, specialized in journalism and communication sciences. I was no longer excited as I was on the day when I applied for university, and I understood that after three years of study I didn’t grow enough. I still lacked self-confidence and was too shy. The thought that I was about to need to look for a job was scaring me. “But what can I do?” I wondered. I was never absent from classes, I was curious, I always had good grades, but still, after three years of university I didn’t have a definite answer.

The School of Advanced Journalism was a lifesaver for me at the time. I knew quite a lot about it, including the fact that the selection of students was very strict. I remember that I came out of an interview with sweaty palms and with a great desire to become a student of the School of Advanced Journalism. I found out that I was admitted after my second final state exam at the university. On August 31, 2011, I wrote on Facebook – A schoolgirl again, beginning tomorrow! I was pleased, and the intensity of this feeling grew and still keeps growing.

A year of school was enough to understand where I wanted to get and what I wanted to do next. And it was not only because we had intense courses of journalism – the practitioners who were our trainers meant a lot, as well as the organization of courses. We didn’t have much time to dream about nonsense. We always had something to do and the deadline was the law. In a word, we learned to be responsible.

I remember now the first task for the photo journalism course with Nicolae Pojoga, when we tried to capture unique moments, think creatively in images, but no one accepted to be photographed. Then we made our first interviews, did field work, first video shoots and recordings for the radio course. It was as if for some time you worked at a newspaper, then a while at the radio, then on television. We were so clumsy, but within a year we grew.

Because I was a schoolgirl again, I became what I am now, and the most important is the place where I want to keep growing, where I am proud to begin every morning – it is here, at Radio Free Europe.

Meanwhile, students from other SAJ classes became good co-workers, and it is one more proof, I think, that everyone with a dream can find a place. And many still can make a right or inspired choice, as I call it. Dare! The School of Advanced Journalism opens doors, you only need to knock.