Matthew Moss
Staff Writer
Scott Barnes is a staff writer for The Prospectus who has been sharing his enthusiasm for journalism with the 
Parkland community for almost two years.
“I love working for The Prospectus,” he said. “I love writing stories; I have a serious passion for it.”
Barnes attributes his decision to pursue the journalism career path to writing for The Prospectus.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I started college,” he said. “When I got a position here as a staff writer, I realized pretty quickly that I had a knack for it.”
Working with other skilled writers, photographers, and editors at The Prospectus, he said, helped him to grow as a responsible, objective, and passionate journalist.
Moving from a staff writer to an editor in the Spring 2015 semester, Barnes decided to step down from the position to focus on his writing.
He particularly likes writing about people’s stories, saying he can empathize with those who are at odds with their lot in life.
After being kicked out of high school and while working what he called a “dead-end job” in the suburbs of Chicago, a love interest who was attending the University of Illinois brought him to Champaign-Urbana and inspired him to go back to school. Here, he discovered he was eligible for the Pell Grant and used it to enroll at Parkland.
He is majoring in mass communication at Parkland, which will lay the groundwork for studying journalism at Columbia College in Chicago. He plans on studying in Spain during the Fall 2016 semester before returning to the Windy City
Barnes cannot overstate the importance of The Prospectus in his life and urges other students to look into working at the newspaper. He says it has taught him valuable research skills and given him impetus to interact with different departments and groups of students at Parkland.
“I think that The Prospectus is a very valuable asset to Parkland College,” he said. “It just enriches the whole experience of being at Parkland.”