Photo: Trip Advisor, "Hidden Stairways of San Francisco"
I didn’t expect a conference to change how I saw my future. But somewhere between my first look at the ocean and a small presentation about a neighborhood staircase, something clicked.
I recently traveled to San Francisco for a journalism conference (hosted by ACP: "Bridging the Gap: Journalism that Connects), and from the moment I arrived, the city felt different from anywhere I had been before. I grew up near one of the most sought out cities in the world, Chicago, but San Francisco felt like something else entirely, a place where the energy of a busy city somehow coexists with quiet beauty.
Before this trip, I had never experienced going to the ocean. Standing near the water and seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time was surreal. It’s one of those things you grow up seeing in photos or movies, but when it’s actually in front of you, it feels bigger than you expected. The same was true when I finally saw the Golden Gate Bridge in person. It was familiar, almost symbolic, but also oddly personal in that moment. While this may seem like small things to some, it made me reflect on my entire experience there entirely, where it was just me, my friends, and a silence that can only happen when you are looking at something so naturally beautiful.
What struck me most about the city was the balance. San Francisco has the hustle of a major city, packed streets, constant movement, the sense that something is always happening, but it also has space to breathe. Ocean views, hills, neighborhoods full of character. It felt like the perfect mix of work and life, seriousness and fun.
And that balance mirrored something I’ve been feeling about my own path.
I’m an economics major. Journalism has never been my official track, just something I’ve always cared about on the side, something that felt more like a random passion than a real direction. But at this conference, hearing journalists talk about the work they do and the impact stories can have started to make that passion feel a lot more real.
One session in particular stuck with me.
The presentation was led by Paul Signorelli, a facilitator, consultant and member of the UCLA Daily Bruin Alumni Network. His session focused on identifying and developing complex stories, the kinds of stories that often get overlooked.
During the presentation, Signorelli talked about his involvement with a San Francisco community effort known as the Hidden Steps project. The project highlights and restores the city’s many historic staircases, hidden pathways built into San Francisco’s steep hills that connect neighborhoods and create small public spaces for the community. Volunteers clean them, decorate them and maintain them, turning what could be forgotten infrastructure into meaningful neighborhood landmarks.
It’s the kind of story that seems perfect for coverage. Community involvement, local history, people working together to improve their neighborhoods.
But according to Signorelli, only one local article ever covered the project. That surprised him. It surprised everyone in the room as well.
In his presentation, he explained that journalism often focuses on conflict and negativity because those stories dominate the world around us. But that doesn’t mean other stories aren’t there. In fact, he argued, there are thousands of meaningful stories happening every day that simply never get told.
He challenged us, the students in the room, to find them.
One moment from the Hidden Steps project stood out in particular. Signorelli described a woman who donated multiple steps to the project. Each step was dedicated to someone she knew who had lost their life to gun violence in San Francisco. What started as a simple neighborhood project became something deeply personal, a quiet memorial embedded into the city itself.
Listening to that story, I realized something important: meaningful journalism doesn’t always come from breaking news or national headlines. Sometimes it comes from noticing the things that everyone else walks past.
The Hidden Steps story will stick with me because it represents exactly that: the stories hiding in plain sight.
That session ended up representing my entire experience at the conference. I went to San Francisco expecting to learn about journalism. I didn’t expect to start thinking about it as something I might actually continue professionally — somehow, someway.
But somewhere between hearing about untold stories, walking through a city that feels alive with them, and seeing the ocean for the first time, journalism stopped feeling like a side interest.
It started to feel like purpose.
Maybe that sounds over the top. But sometimes a place just hits you in a certain way. Being in San Francisco made me realize how many stories exist around us, stories about communities, about people trying to make things better, about the small moments that shape a city.
And that’s the real lesson I’m taking home from the conference.
The world doesn’t need more noise. It needs people willing to notice the stories no one else is telling.
If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get to be one of them.