Tahirah Hairston is a ball of fire – energetic and enthusiastic. Her smile is contagious. You can’t help but want to give her a hug.

A native of Detroit, Hairston, 19, attends Howard University, where she is a junior print journalism major with a minor in photography. Last year she was an editor of her campus newspaper, The Hilltop, where she learned the rewards and challenges of journalism.

“Sometimes people wouldn’t turn in their stories and sometimes I had to write a lot of their stories,” Hairston said. “It became frustrating. I would break down.”
But she didn’t quit.

It’s that determination that helped Hairston get to The New York Times Student Journalism Institute. She credits her mother for inciting her passion.

“I grew up with a single mother,” she said. “I think that’s where I get my drive from.”

Hairston’s mother, a nurse, encouraged her daughter to pursue a career in journalism.

Taking her mother’s advice, Hairston joined the student newspaper at Howard her freshman year, writing her first story on a fashion shop in New York.

But Hairston witnessed the ugly side of journalism last summer while interning at Vibe magazine. Just as her internship began, the publication folded because of financial problems. She briefly considered leaving the industry and going to law school, but she knew her passion was with words.

“I can’t see myself doing anything else,” Hairston said. “I don’t know what else I would do.”

Hairston’s goal is to be the first black editor-in-chief of Vogue. Eventually she would like to create a fashion publication focused on African-American designers and featuring minority models.

“I read and breathe fashion,” she said.

This summer she’ll be interning at Seventeen magazine and living in Harlem, following in the footsteps of such storytellers as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. She hopes to use the tools of the Institute to be just as great.

“I hope to get better at my writing,” she said. “If I can be a ‘New York Times-good’ writer, then I can be a great writer.”

An earlier version of this article misstated Hairston’s position at The Hilltop and gave an incorrect marital status for her mother.

– Lottie L. Joiner

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