Juggling a double major and his college’s honors program, Christian Lee ‘23 in his sophomore year at Temple University, has already been taking massive steps in his career, just two years after graduating from Edison HIgh.
Lee, stepping out of his comfort zone, has begun to work for his college’s newscast team, called Temple Update, as the weather reporter. But, he hopes to achieve his goal of becoming a political reporter in the near and short future.
EE: What sparked your interest in broadcast journalism?
CL: I did theater a lot of my high school career, I was so set that I was going to be a theater major. When I entered college, that did not happen. I ended up being a journalism major, and when I ended up in the journalism program, I really loved it, and I stuck with it, so it was a great experience for me.
EE: Do you have any favorite moments from EHS?
CL: Yeah, I did a lot of things in EHS. I was the Choir President. I was active in Theater. I also did FCCLA. I was the Student Council secretary. Winning the same council elections was a great time for me because it was the start of my maturity and growth. Further than that, the teachers and every connection that I’ve made there. I still hang out with a lot of my friends from Edison High School, so that’s great.
EE: Do you think your time at EHS has helped your journalism skills in university?
CL: Yes, definitely. With Edison High School being a pretty large school, I was forced to be social, understanding, and connect with a lot of people that I knew. Serving on student council and stuff like that helped me do that. Edison High School helped me form my social skills to conduct interviews and put things together for journalism.
EE: How is university life similar or different from Edison High School?
CL: Yeah, I currently attend Temple University. It is different from Edison in the fact that it’s humongous. There are 25,000 students. I think that socially you can still make a splash, like you did in high school. You just have to find your niche and find your group. I really worked hard in what I was doing, and I ended up working my way up. I think that in terms of comparing it to high school, it’s fairly incomparable. College is a very different experience than high school will ever be. In the same vein, there are skills that you can use from high school to take yourself into college.
EE: What other activities have you participated in, outside of broadcast journalism?
CL: In college, I’m a part of the honors program. There, we have opportunities to be a peer-mentor and an ambassador, which I’m both. This semester, I got to teach the first-year seminar course that the freshman will come in and take. It was rewarding to be able to teach a class that I took last year. In addition to that, I do a lot more with journalism, in terms of producing. I am a producer on a show, and I put out newscasts. I’m not part of many other clubs that are not journalism-based, but I do enjoy this one organization called “The Templar” where I write and expand my entire knowledge of journalism.
EE: Do you have any regrets about your time in high school and if so, how do you think you would use those experiences to boost your time at college?
CL:
I hate that I have regrets, but I definitely do. I came from private school into Edison High School, so I wasn’t really well oriented on things like public school and what that was like. So I wish that I had pushed myself to get a little bit more involved a little bit sooner. But when I realized that I wasn’t doing that, I did get involved, so giving yourself grace is very important. I was pretty hard on myself and then moving forward, I kind of got discouraged. So I wouldn’t do that either. So my regrets would be not getting involved sooner, but further than that, my other advice would be fixing your mistakes and then giving yourself grace because of that. You can’t beat yourself up because then you’ll continuously be upset.
EE: How is your transition from Edison High School to university such as Temple?
CL: It was definitely weird because everything was foreign, but I adjusted fairly quickly and I ended up having a great first year. It’s different for everyone. I cannot say that my experience is the same as any of my friends, but I love my first year, and I feel like I adjusted pretty quickly, even though it was a different environment.
EE: How would you like to describe yourself as a student right now compared to Edison High School?
CL: I would describe myself as incredibly hardworking. I know. it’s a cocky adjective to give myself, but I’ve, really, really worked hard. I’ve declared a double major (journalism and political science) and I would say that I’m on top of my curriculum in schoolwork. I have a 4.0 GPA. In high school, I was not that person, and I think that because I wasn’t, I pushed myself so hard to give myself that start in college.
EE: What advice would you give to students at Edison High School?
CL: I loved my experience there. Of course, I can’t speak for everyone, but in addition to that, getting involved is so incredibly important. I think I’ve said that before. It’s so vitally important for you to recognize what you like to do, what you don’t like to do, and being involved in these different types of clubs will help you be more oriented in your major when you get to college and in the professional fields when you leave college. As you like to have this idea as like, okay, I don’t like to, let’s say, sing and dance, but I do like to do math, you know, and so high school is the first starting block of you figuring that out. And you don’t have to have it all figured out by the time you get to college. I mean, no one does. I still don’t even know, but it’s nice to have a good idea to ease your way.
CL: I wish I could have gotten involved again. I didn’t get involved in high school. I would say that I loved my time at Edison High School and I’m honored to be able to do this.