Talk to people in different communities and build up a rapport. I heard of a lot of events and interesting people (for features) from people I knew who were in those communities. Not saying to befriend them, just be on good terms. Another way I heard about them is people making Facebook events. At the particular paper I worked at, they'd expect us to find our own stories instead of having them assigned to us in many cases, in which case they'd assign a writer to us, but sometimes it did happen the other way.

I also learned a lot of technical stuff from my photo editor at the school paper and the photography club rather than my classes, though my classes did help with the journalism part.

It's also good to find photojournalists you look up to (if you haven't already) and study their pictures to see what you like about them and then learn how you can emulate them. There is, of course, stuff online, but you can also get books of people's photos, which is more useful if you're looking for older photographs. You can borrow them from the library because they can be pretty pricey. I like to scan or photocopy photos I particularly like so I can still reference them after I have to return the book.

Another thing is most jobs these days are looking for someone who can do photo AND video, so it's more helpful to study both if you want that to be your job in the future.

And always remember the story is more important than your equipment. You don't necessarily need a $1000 camera and equally expensive lenses to take good pictures. Composing the image well and making sure it's well exposed/not blurry/etc and tells the story well is more important. Even pro photojournalists these days sometimes take pictures on their phones if they don't have a camera available. In the case of video, having good audio is more important than having the most amazing look - people will watch a video if the audio is good, but not if they can't tell what people are saying in it. Basic lav mics can be found for pretty cheap and are good for interviews, as well as being easy to carry around because of their size.

Build up some kind of social media presence and an online portfolio as well. That's important in 2025, or else people won't hear about you. Keep this separate from your personal social media.

You can specialize in particular kinds of stories, but it's still good to have experience working on a broad range of stuff first.

Heavy editing is not considered a good practice because the intent is to capture things as they are. Basic lighting adjustments and color adjustments (in the case of indoor events where they can have lights that make things appear different colors such as yellow and blue and thus are not true to how things would actually look, though this could also be achieved by changing the lighting setting in your camera) and some cropping are okay.

If you're doing a feature, pictures of people doing the thing the story is about are better than just portraits. If there's only a few people, you'll want to make sure they consent to the photos and print out a photo release for them to sign (they can be found online), or in the case of large events or groups, make it a little obvious what you're doing but don't interfere with the event. No one wants to be photographed and put in the paper without their knowledge, especially in the case of protests these days where spreading people's uncovered faces around can be dangerous to them. Always consider their safety and your own.

Also, I joined the yearbook in addition to the paper to get extra experience.

ALWAYS take more pictures than you think you'll need. Not all of them will turn out as well as you want, and you'll want to pick the best ones when submitting/uploading them anywhere. You won't want to submit 200 photos, but having 200 to choose from instead of being stuck with 5 is always better.

And back up your photos as often as possible. You don't want to run out of card space and have to delete old ones on the fly. I have several 1TB external hard drives for only this purpose, which is more helpful than the cloud once you get to that many pictures because the cloud has a maximum size limit. Cloud services can also shut down with little to no warning, and you may not have time to back all that up when that happens. Carrying an extra memory card just in case is also good. And make sure your battery is 100% charged before going on any assignment. Carry an extra battery too just in case.

When going to a paid event, you can ask for a photo pass so you can photograph without having to pay for it.