Gina Nguyen was named Mississippi High School Journalist of the Year in 2020. She was the editor-in-chief of The Vision newspaper at the Mississippi School for Math and Science. Currently, she is a fourth-year student at the University of Southern California majoring in Russian.

Nguyen will continue her education into the fifth year. Following graduation, she will be commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Air Force.

Originally, Nguyen started as a double major in Russian and journalism but decided to drop journalism.

“I received a scholarship coming out of high school for Air Force ROTC and it’s for me to pursue a foreign language,” Nguyen said. “I was going to study a foreign language wherever I went but at USC, Russian is the one that qualified for that scholarship so I did both. I ended up getting overwhelmed with two majors so I dropped journalism to maintain my scholarship on Russian.”

Nguyen started photography in early middle school as a hobby then applied to be the photography editor for The Vision, MSMS’s newspaper, because the position was open.

“When I went to high school, I was doing photography a lot more and one of my friends who was on The Vision, MSMS’s newspaper, asked me to apply to be the photography editor because the position was open,” Nguyen said. “When I started doing that, I really got into photography. I’ve been doing photojournalism ever since and now I do freelance photography too.”

After Nguyen graduates next May, she will join the U.S. Air Force and she wants to continue freelance photography while in the U.S. Air Force.

“As far as my career in the Air Force, I don’t know what I’ll do yet,” Nguyen said. “You rank the jobs you want and then come August, they’ll give me an assignment. No matter where I end up in the Air Force, I want to continue freelance photography or photojournalism on my own. Once I separate with the Air Force, I plan to get back into full-time photojournalism.”

Nguyen being named Mississippi High School Journalist of the Year in 2020 showed her that she was capable of doing journalism and photojournalism.

“It definitely showed me that I am capable of more than I know,” Nguyen said. “I never imagined getting that far in journalism and on that state-wide, national level. I always say that I found journalism in a moment of my life where it was an early life crisis. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. For so long I’d been set on going to the medical field [because] that’s what my parents expected [of] me. I realized that wasn’t for me and journalism and photography was an outlet so I turned to that.”

“I found a community [and] I found something I was passionate about. I realized how much I loved learning about people’s stories and helping to share that with the world. I’ve just realized how underreported so much of the world is. That’s been my big push and I’m still trying to work towards that.”

Nguyen recommends students apply to journalism positions during university because there is always a community open.

“When I was going through the transition of high school and university, I was really worried that my skills and my experience weren’t a match for a university level reporting,” Nguyen said. “If you have a passion for it, just do it. Just apply and you’ll learn as you go so don’t go into failing. If there’s someone who wants to be a part of journalism there’s always going to be a space for you because journalism is so broad.”