I’ve treated most of these editorials like personal diary entries, which I’m sure they’re not supposed to be, but this is my last issue of the Trinitonian — so let me have this one more time. Honestly, I’m sort of in mourning right now precisely because this is the last issue of the Trinitonian I will ever work on, which feels wrong. I’ve dedicated all four years here at Trinity to this publication, and before that, three years of high school to “The Bruin Print.” Journalism has been such a big part of my life, but now I’m off to law school and think it’s unlikely I’ll work in journalism again, at least not anytime soon.
It feels almost like a betrayal to leave journalism behind when it’s given me so much. Deciding to go to law school over continuing my studies in journalism was really difficult, but ultimately I realized that if I was going to have a stressful job I wanted the potential to actually make money someday (half kidding). Though, the one thing that makes me feel better is that I suppose I wouldn’t have found myself considering law school if I hadn’t joined my high school newspaper, and I wouldn’t have been a part of my high school newspaper if my mom had just let me drop the class like I wanted to. Life is weird like that.
I decided to sign up for my high school’s journalism class for my sophomore year because, well, I wanted something to do, and I figured it could help me with my confidence. I’d have to go out and talk to people. Then, on the first day of the class, the teacher explained that we would have to try to sell ad spaces to local businesses in addition to writing articles and all that, which was NOT what I signed up for. I went home that day and told my mom I wanted to drop the class, and she told me I’d have to tell the teacher first. I just couldn’t quite work up the courage to tell the teacher I wanted to drop, so in the class I stayed.
And I loved it. I had always liked writing, and I had a lot of fun exploring this new style. I decided I wanted to do another year, and by virtue of being the only one of the, like, seven students from the last year that didn’t graduate, I became editor-in-chief. Enjoyed that so much that I contrived a way to stay with the class for a third year, even though that wasn’t supposed to be an option. That third year I met a girl who asked me to join the mock trial team, and I did.
I asked my journalism teacher to write a letter of recommendation for me, then I came to Trinity, I joined the student newspaper, I joined the mock trial team, I wrote my personal statement for law school about the story of me trying to quit journalism, I got into law school. The thread of journalism runs all the way through seven years of my life and shaped who I am in a lot of ways.
What I’m trying to say here more generally is that sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is just go out on a limb, try out the things you think you might like. It’s the only way you can find passions you never would have known about otherwise, and life-changing ones at that. More specifically, though, I have to say that I think you should look into journalism. Maybe it won’t fully click with you, but you’ll have the chance to develop important skills and learn valuable life lessons.
There’s the writing and editing, managing deadlines and people skills, but you also start to better recognize good and bad journalism when you read it, a skill that’s very needed these days. You also develop empathy and realize that meaning can be found in mundane experiences. Working in journalism also has a unique way of teaching you about yourself by throwing you into the fire. You have to make decisions, often very quickly, and especially when you’re a student journalist, those decisions can backfire — then you learn to deal with the consequences.
Maybe you’ll discover journalism really is the thing for you, which would be amazing. With print journalism on the decline and local newspapers closing everyday, we could use some passionate journalists out there. But even if that wasn’t me, wherever I end up, I’ll always be grateful I was a teenage journalist.
