It's a different kind of after-school program. Think of it less as a club and more like a real-world internship.

You'll be working as a youth-reporter looking into issues that are affecting your community. This spring, the Radio 101 after-school program will be looking into the idea of Change. What does change mean to you? What happens when something or someone we love changes? How does change define who we are? And much more! How you interpret the theme, is up to you.

Throughout the semester, you will learn how to use the equipment professional journalists use, how to tell stories that captivate your audience (and potential college board admissions and/or employers), and you will get to hear yourself on the air! Yeah, that’s right. The best stories will be broadcast on 88.5 WFDD. And if they are really, really good (which we know they will be), we’ll pitch them to NPR, on which more than 30 million people will listen to your voice telling a story…pretty cool, huh?

While the after-school program is free and open to high school students from all over the area, we do require a certain level of commitment in order to participate:

• The program meets every Wednesday from 4:30pm to 5:30pm at the WFDD studios.
• We will begin on March 1st and we will finish on early May. Missing one week is like missing a whole month of school. A LOT happens in just one week.

What you need in order to participate:

• An idea of how you interpret the theme for this fall. It doesn't have to be a full pitch, but just a sense of the story you'd like to work on. The story can come from your own experience, or just an interest that you might have. For example, you might want to know what is like for a teenager to deal with the changes that come with leaving high school. Or maybe, is a story about a changing part of your hometown ...
• You should be comfortable writing. A three to four minute story roughly translates to a 500 word essay.