On April 10th, BHA Post and Yearbook club members departed BHA and started their journey to UT Austin to attend the ILPC (interscholastic press league) journalism convention. The group’s field trip was without a doubt unforgettable. In addition to participating in a variety of educational sessions designed to improve their journalistic skills, they also visited the famous “Oasis on Lake Travis”, the Texas State Capitol, and souvenir shops along with plenty of other fun activities.
 The Ride to Austin
The group departed from BHA at about 6 A.M. on Friday, April 10th. The girls from the group rode on a 15 seater van while the three boys and their chaperone went via an SUV. The group went down the I-35 and passed by Waco until they took a stop at a Bu-cees’, which some members had never been to before. Yusuf Madani remarks, “Bu’cees was super cool, the bathrooms are magnificent”. After Bu-cee’s the group continued towards a masjid where they attended Jumuah prayer. After about a 45 minute stop, they resumed the journey towards Austin.
The First Day
The group arrived at Homewood Suites, where they would be staying for their three-day-long trip. Yusuf Madani described the hotel room as “quite nice.” After settling down, they departed towards their first ILPC workshop at UT Austin. In it, students learned about the legitimacy of social media as a school news source. The students were also shown the extent to which a social media platform can be useful towards broadcasting their stories and yearbook sneak-peaks.
After the workshop concluded, the students headed towards “The Oasis on Lake Travis”, a restaurant at the top of the Austin West Lake Hills. The students enjoyed a variety of foods such as buffalo burgers and shrimp plates. The students also admired the mountains surrounding the lake which were quite the scene compared to the prairies of Dallas. As Yusuf Madani put it, “they were beautiful.” The group headed to the “OMG Squee” ice cream shop for dessert afterwards before returning to the hotel to end off their first day.
The Second Day – Convention
The group woke up at around 6 A.M. to eat a complementary hotel breakfast consisting of eggs and Texas-shaped waffles. They then departed to attend the main part of the ILPC convention, the break-out sessions. These sessions encompassed a variety of journalistic topics ranging from how to hook a reader in articles, to how to take good photos, and even how to start a school podcast. Wahaj Uddin, the Editor in Chief of the BHA Post, admired the convention, saying that the sessions were “very useful for all.” They allowed Newspaper and Yearbook students to learn things about journalism and photography that they didn’t have the ability to master at school. Additionally, since BHA doesn’t have a journalism class, the convention taught students things that they could not have been taught before attending.
The group had a lunch break and prayed before leaving for dinner. The boys and girls went to separate places; the boys went to a sushi place while girls decided on a pizza place. Both the boys and girls had a great time, in fact it was Wahaj Uddin’s first time eating sushi, which he enjoyed very much.
The Third Day – Heading Back
The group woke up to their final day in Austin at about 7 A.M. and ate breakfast before departing for the ILPC keynote address by Morgan Chesky. This was an important speech, as it “touched on the human aspect of journalism,” according to Wahaj Uddin. The speaker talked about how his home town of Kerrville in Central Texas flooded on the 4th of July 2025, and what it was like for him to report on the devastation faced by a place he only knew as home. Chesky also emphasized that journalists reporting on crises should respect interviewees, sympathize with them, and give them the necessary space before interviewing them on camera.
Once the keynote address concluded, the group made their way to a souvenir shop where they took pictures and bought merchandise. They then had lunch at Chipotle before praying at a masjid and departing from Austin. Along the way, they visited a Czech style gas station. Yusuf Madani remarked, “I like these [Czech toys.]”
After a long journey, the group finally came back home, appreciating the many new things they had learned about journalism and photography, along with the unforgettable experiences and memories they made. Ultimately, the one thing everyone could agree on after the trip was that they were all excited for ILPC 2027!
