Writing has long been a source of relief and freedom for me, offering a means to express myself and, ultimately, to advocate for and share the stories of others.

College Journalism: Articles & Multimedia Projects

1st Place Multimedia Journalism Story

I won first place at the Oklahoma Broadcast Education Association award ceremony for my multimedia journalism story on Langston University students placing second at Code-A-Thon led by Deonna Owens.

Langston University students placed second at the Code-A-Thon hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

The seventh annual Kansas City Fed Code-A-Thon was a two-day virtual event where collegiate teams were tasked with building software solutions for meaningful problems. The purpose of the event is to inspire computer science and engineering students. The event lasted the weekend of Feb. 23 and 24. The awards ceremony took place on March 10. 18 teams competed, but only between seven and 10 teams were selected to present their solutions. Presenting solutions means delivering a solution to a given problem using technology.

Deonna Owens, a junior computer science major from Tulsa, Oklahoma, led her team to second place. Her role was team lead and front-end engineer. As team lead, she was responsible for delegating tasks, making a schedule for her team to follow and ensuring everything ran smoothly. She was also there to aid her teammates and answer their questions. Additionally, she had to make sure her team was working together and “making sure they’re all on the same page,” said Owens. As a front-end engineer, she coded up the entire front end that you would see on the application. An application is a computer program used to carry out specific tasks. 

Owens’s team consisted of Charles Lett, who worked as the back-end engineer, Zariyah Graves, User Interface User Experience Designer and Joshua Heck worked as the video engineer. 

This past weekend, Owens and her team, Charles Let and Joshua Heck participated in a Hack-A-Thon at the University of Alabama. The Hack-A-Thon was 24 hours long. Her team was given 24 hours to develop and submit their solution. They presented their application, fatigued with no sleep and won first place.

Owens participated in the Adobe HBCU 20 by 20 program, where she learned about Adobe as a company. She attended resume review workshops and had numerous opportunities to network. This summer, she will be interning with Apple as an engineering intern for the air pods team.

Owens advises young girls interested in STEM to “Be confident in yourself and your abilities … so you have to show up as a version of your best self.”

Watch Deonna on the news.

As a staff reporter and writer for my school newspaper, and later as Digital Editor, I developed expertise in crafting narratives across a range of topics. My experience includes writing on subjects from STEM and opinion editorials to educational and feature stories.

I wrote an article on the impact of COVID-19 on enrollment at Langston University.

I wrote an article on effectively navigating the financial aid process

I wrote a feature story on the mental health of college athletes.

I wrote a story about the collaboration between Langston University STEM students and NASA.

I wrote a thesis examining the impact of colorism on dark-skinned Black actresses in the film industry.