Hugo Novales

Hugo Novales – 06.09.2021 (Photo: Hugo Novales)

Hugo Novales is a part-time Master of Journalism student at JMSC.

Born and raised in Chicago, Hugo opted to study in his hometown at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), one of the top public universities in the US. He graduated in 2017 with a degree in English – Professional Writing. He also completed the coursework for a concentration in Creative Writing of Fiction. As an undergraduate student, Hugo worked on campus in multiple roles. He was a resident assistant in the student dormitories for three years, a panelist on the student conduct board, a social media intern for a campus organization that aided Latin American students, and, most importantly, co-founder and president of UIC’s first-ever undergraduate English club.

Hugo’s first ambition after graduation was to find work as a journalist or writer somewhere in the US, but he ended up getting hired to teach English in Beijing and moved there in late 2017. He lived there for over a year before moving to Hong Kong in early 2019 to continue teaching English. Since moving to Hong Kong, many of the social and political events that have happened here and elsewhere in the world have stressed the importance of good journalism to Hugo, as well as the millions of people across the globe. Elections, protests, pandemics, social movements, all of these (and more) have reinforced Hugo’s desire to transition out of his current career in education and into the journalism field like he originally intended.

Hugo will graduate from the MJ programme in 2023.