Story by student reporter, Sierra Stephens

Georgia Youth Assembly is the surprising experience of a lifetime. I attended this year’s session with the TCCHS Student Ambassadors program and my AP United States Government class. I wanted to apply some of my learning about the way the government functions. I found myself amazed.

Youth Assembly, affectionately referred to as YA, is a gathering of students from across the state to study our law-making process. Sounds boring, right? Think again. The Youth Assembly is named for the General Assembly, and hundreds of students formed a complete legislature, along with judicial, lobbyist, and media programs. The student Senate and House debated over bills, either passed or failed them, and the youth governor either vetoed or signed them into “law.”

This caught me largely by surprise. I was in the media program and walked in clueless. For some reason, I thought we would sit through some lectures on the role of media in the government, then break for the delicious Atlanta cuisine. Instead, we would be “covering” happenings for the event newspaper, the YA Record. We could write on anything, anyone, anywhere.

Walking around working on my stories, getting strange looks until my media badge was recognized, interviewing senators and representatives with no fear at all, was exhilarating. Combining my love for writing and a newfound boldness, I could find a story, and this felt incredibly important. I was enamored.

While I was there, I was also nominated to be a co-editor of the next year’s YA Record. Finding this out completely excited me, and I felt as though I had achieved something even greater than I originally imagined. Everything I had worked for that weekend had paid off. To me, this position was even more important and made me truly believe I could be a part of something bigger than myself. Again I’ll be clueless, but I look forward to challenging myself to rise to the part.

For me, Youth Assembly was unforgettable. Everything I did there sparked a new passion for journalism, and I found something I saw myself doing for the rest of my life. My one regret was that I had not discovered it earlier.