For the past 18 years, I was a student. In just 12 days, I will graduate from college and everything I knew for the past 18 years will just be a small part of my memory.
In 20 years when I reflect on my college education, I hope to remember my involvement with the Cardinal Courier, Fisher's student run news organization. As a freshman, I was a bio major who dreamed of becoming a pharmacist. So how did a bio major get involved with a journalism club...? I agreed to model in the Cardinal Courier's magazine.
I had no intention of writing for the Courier, until I was told that I could write about anything. That sounded pretty cool, especially since I was notorious for carrying around a journal as a child. If you know me well, you know that I grew up as an athlete and I enjoy working out. Since I could write about anything, my first article was about fad diets. However, I am not sure I would consider my first article journalism because at the time, I questioned why I needed to interview people for my article. I obviously had no idea what I was doing. LOL! But that didn't matter, because at the end of my freshman year, I changed my major to media and communication.
Sophomore year, I did it all. I wasn't the best journalist but I found my love for TV. I worked with the TV studio at school and even had my own entertainment show called For Your Entertainment (FYE). My dream of becoming an entertainment news broadcaster for E! News was born that year. Traveling to NYC with the Cardinal Courier for a media convention is something I will never forget because my passion and understanding of journalism grew tremendously. I went from memorizing the function of a mitochondria to memorizing the AP Style Book.
What was once a hobby turned into a passion when I served as the lifestyles editor during my junior year. The following year, I was given the opportunity to be the Editor in Chief. I oversaw the production of monthly magazines and daily online news articles but my job was more than that - I was a photographer, a designer and so much more. A lot of responsibility fell on my shoulders but it taught me to be a fearless leader. This month I will proudly accept the Keough Founding Editors Award for my success as a journalist. The skills I learned in the Courier office were invaluable and I am confident that this opportunity prepared me for my future.
I love journalism because it gives people a voice and it informs the public. Henry Anatole Grunwald, previous editor of Time, Inc, said it best, "Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air."