Kobi Azoulay, a 2014 graduate who wrote for Lancer Media fall 2013, is now a reporter for Salisbury University, with articles already published in The Flyer: Salisbury University’s Student Voice, such as: “America Needs A Major Third Party,” “Opposing Views In Freedom Of Speech,” and a very insightful story called, “Stop Changing Time.”

Azoulay, currently is majoring in Communications (Journalism track) and Political Science at Salisbury.

The majority of Azoulay’s articles are related to politics. “I decided to write so many political news articles because they’re the kind of stories that’ll impact mankind long after we’re gone. A lot of people in our generation seem to have an aversion to learning about politics, which I think is just crazy, because these people are basically placing the control over their life into the hands of people that may not have their best interest at heart. I hope that my political writing will influence people to want to make a difference,” said Azoulay.

In addition, he took the opportunity that only a few high school students consider, graduating a year early, making his junior year his senior year. With hard work and focus, he was able to graduate with a 3.7 GPA.

Azoulay said, “Graduating high school early hasn’t placed me at any disadvantages when applying to college at all; although I only applied at Salisbury because of my financial situation.”

Student services counselor Renata Emery said this year 10 students have applied for and have been approved to graduate early.

However, few students know exactly what they would like to do with the rest of their future. Taking any elective at Linganore can spark an interest for an individual’s career choice, especially a course such as journalism.

Azoulay said “When I first entered high school, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with my life. While I got good grades in most of my subjects, nothing really jumped out me. As I started to notice that my writing grades were much better than some of my peers, I realized that writing could take me somewhere big one day. Writing for The Lance is what allowed me to finally tie it all together and discover the career that I want to pursue”

Good writing is where it starts when it comes to journalism. If one can write well, he can then be expected to report well. “I was always decent at writing, but journalism class allowed me to combine my communication and writing skills in an exciting way.” Said Azoulay.

Clearly he was able to take the skills he learned and put them to use at the next level. He said, “ I was able to apply a few skills that I learned at The Lance in college. I still audio record interviews and research other news stories online in order to come up with topics to write about. While in college we have to always write in AP format, writing at Linganore allowed me to get a better understanding of how news stories are worded.”

“The biggest difference between writing for college and writing for high school, is that writing for college is a lot more time consuming. On top of all of the homework you’re assigned, you also have to go out and conduct interviews and write news stories mostly on your own. Your editors do help a little bit, but not nearly as much as a teacher would in high school,” said Azoulay,

“My favorite part about writing for The Flyer is the laid-back atmosphere. Everyone is laughing and joking around with each other during our weekly meetings, deadlines are flexible, and if you find yourself stuck with coming up with story ideas an editor can usually help you come up with one,” said Azoulay.