Autobiography

“Good morning, Pleasant Lea Junior High…” It was at that point that I knew I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. I was in the eighth grade and had just moved to Lee’s Summit. They told me that I had to have a speech class before I could take the television production class, but little did they know, I taken speech at my previous school. So, once they got my transcripts I was good to go. Being able to write, report, edit and produce the weekly news for the school was an amazing experience. I didn’t know what type of career that was called, but I wanted to do the news. My parents introduced me to broadcast journalism.
My mother, Pat, graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in electrical engineer. She currently works at St. Luke’s East Hospital in Lee’s Summit, MO. My father, Stan Beatty, also graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in Computer Science. He currently works for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, MO. My brother currently attends Cornell University where he is studying engineering. So, I’m the only person in my family without the desire to pursue a technical degree. Because of that I thought it would be difficult for my parents to introduce me to my passion, but they tried their hardest and succeeded.
I decided that I wanted to attend Hampton University to study journalism. When I was still in high school, Hampton had just opened a state of the art journalism school with a grant from Scripps Howard News Service. The school was perfect: new journalism school, a historically Black university and it was in a beautiful city on the ocean. What else could I ask for? Then, my parents broke the news: the University of Missouri (which is only 2 hours from home) has the best journalism school in the country. So I had to make a decision. Though it isn’t what I wanted I can say that my experience at MU has paid off.
Besides journalism, my faith is very important to me. I am very involved in church both at home in Kansas City and at school in Columbia. At home I attend Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church. I was president of the youth group and sang soprano in the youth choir. Here, in Columbia, I attend Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. I am involved with the youth ministry as a mentor as well as Bible study leader.
Another experience that changed my life was the opportunity to study abroad during the summer of 2005. I went to Sydney, Australia to take Cross-Cultural Journalism. I experienced a cultural totally different, but yet similar to American culture. The people were friendly and interested in learning more about in America. There were so many different plants, trees, and animals that are native to Australia that I had never seen that make the landscape so beautiful. I hiked up mountains and volcanoes (New Zealand) several times, which is something I had never done before. I experienced so many things that I had never experienced before.
My major at the MU is broadcast journalism. Once I graduate from the University of Missouri School of Journalism I plan to attend business school at Duke University. I want to focus on entrepreneurship so that I can own my own media company. I’m not sure if news is exactly what I want to pursue, but I do want to still be involved with forms of new media including television, radio, and online. Personally I want to have a family and be successful in that arena of my life. I’m not sure how many children I would like to have, but I know that I want to have children. After that I’m not sure where else I want to go in my life. I want to make sure that I travel with my children so that they can see and experience new and different cultures.