This year the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Independent School District has started a program that allows students to intern in its building downtown. I was lucky to be among a group of seniors from the district who will be exploring the field of communications.

Editors at the Houston Chronicle have designed a program where high school students can experience the feel and environment of working in a newsroom and more. They have a two-year commitment for the program and expect it to be successful.

Cynthia Smith, the teacher for the Chronicle Classroom, has experience in both the newsroom, as a former reporter for the Beaumont Enterprise and more than a decade of classroom experience. Smith said she is looking forward to working with the students.

“I'm excited and I think it’s an awesome opportunity for minority students,” Smith said.

The students are just as excited as Mrs. Smith and other staff members.

A lot of the students, as well as me, know that this is an opportunity of a life time. The thought of all of the things we'll be able to do makes us enthusiastic. We'll be able to work and talk with reporters, possibly develop a successful advertising campaign, and write for a broadcast media project.

Nathaniel Green, a student from Booker T. Washington High School, said he hopes to take his writing to another level.

"I may pursue a career in writing and expand my writing potential,” Green said.

I personally am very excited about the whole idea and goal of the program. I'm grateful to be apart of the Chronicle Classroom, along with my Yates classmate Francesca Edwards.

For me to sit back and imagine all of the things we could possibly learn and do makes me anxious and happy at the same time. We the students are expected to leave loving the field of communications. I feel like I'll definitely leave wanting to know and do more.