As part of Hispanic Heritage Month, El Camino hosted an ABC7 Eyewitness news reporter to share her career and life experiences as a journalist on Thursday in the East Dining Room.

Anabel Muñoz, a Biola University graduate with a bachelors degree in journalism and a former Univision and MundoFOX employee, gave a small presentation and speech about her life and journey as a bilingual reporter.

About 200 students from journalism, Spanish and other classes attended the event. Spanish professor Alicia Class, who organized the event, said she was surprised that many people showed up.

Class added that it took five weeks to prepare for this event, even though it was just a two-hour long presentation.

Despite being on television, Muñoz said that she always gets nervous speaking in front of a crowd, but it took time for her to choose journalism as her major.

“I was debating majoring between political science or journalism,” Muñoz said. “I wanted to go to Law school, I still do. A stranger whom I ran into at a coffee shop influenced my decision because he said I would impact a lot of people with my stories.”

This career had me concerned over scarce job opportunities, he encouraged me by telling me I would have many opportunities as a bilingual journalist and that I could reach a higher audience, Muñoz added.

Lonnie Ro, 26, industrial design major, said he, like many students in the room, felt inspired and enjoyed Muñoz’s speech ending with a Q and A.

“It’s good to know what goes on in those newsrooms,” Ro said. “Although, I’m not a journalism major, I liked how being persistent and following your dreams was one of her main topics. It’s a human thing to go after what you want in life.”

Muñoz’s favorite part of the job is that her stories have an impact on the community and she works very hard to make a difference, because it’s not always glamorous being on television.

“My advice for future journalists is: to work hard,” Muñoz said. “Be true to yourself and be committed. What you say and do, it matters to people. You are the voice, the microphone is very powerful.”