Twenty-six-year-old Paul Stephens decided to pursue journalism while he was in the nation of Georgia working as a Peace Corps volunteer.
“I have always been interested in politics, world affairs and writing,” he says, “and I saw journalism as a way to satisfy my natural curiosity while also trying to serve others,” specifically by tackling the issues that impact their lives.
Paul, who is from a small town in Indiana, is currently enrolled in the New Media program at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where he will spend the upcoming months reporting on Astoria, Queens.
Long drawn to writing, Paul majored in English at Wabash College, a small men’s school in Indiana, where he studied fiction writing and wrote for the school paper.
Despite his appreciation for more traditional, long-form magazine writing, Paul says he is “excited by the possibilities of multimedia Internet journalism,” which is why he settled on New Media as a concentration.
Paul’s interest in writing is fueled by a desire to travel and discover: he visited Chile, Indonesia and Georgia, where he taught English at a secondary school in a small village by the Black Sea. He continued to travel after graduation, teaching at a bilingual school in Honduras for five months.
After graduation, Paul hopes to secure a job as a foreign correspondent. He is particularly interested in working in Georgia and other nations of the former Soviet Union. He is trilingual, speaking English, Spanish and Georgian.
Articles by Paul:
Organizations Reach Out to Youth as Bridge to Immigrant Communities
