High school flew by and suddenly I was faced with college and the many decisions accompanying it. Staring down at stacks of applications from various schools, I began to answer mind-boggling questions such as my high school GPA, parents’ income and whether I wanted to live on campus. Then I came across a head stumper: my major.
I drew a blank. How can I choose my life-long career at the age of 17? I could not even narrow down my choices of the college I wanted to attend, let alone what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I knew one thing for sure; that I loved to write. That sort of narrowed my choices to English, communications, or more specifically, journalism. Feeling as if I would be putting it down in blood, I opted for the 00 bubble: undecided.
Once I began attending the University of La Verne, I was reassured by my adviser and faculty that being undecided was OK, and that many students changed their majors many times. I took Journalism 100 and after hanging around the Campus Times room long enough for work-study, I signed up for Newspaper Production I.
In the beginning, I wrote many articles, ranging from news to features to arts and entertainment. Although some were more interesting than others, most of the subject matters were just sort of ho-hum.
One night I was working and then editor in chief Raechel Fittante asked me out of the blue if I would like to do a story assignment pertaining to Low magazine and its editor, Mark Cromer. She, not going into to details, and I, expecting it to be like every other story, agreed. I did not realize that the next few interviews would put my college experience into perfect perspective. Maybe it was the fact that I had been given an exciting story about a controversial magazine thrown together by a couple of college students outraged because their freedom of speech had been oppressed, but I think it was more than that.
For once in my life I was not just doing another homework assignment, or another article. I found myself forgetting the purpose of my interview, too enthralled in the conversation to even remember that I was supposed to be writing it down.
The first interview became so in depth that I had to schedule a second one, which ended up being just as interesting as the first. It was a subject matter that I could relate to, that really pertained to my interests.
Afterwards, I found myself rushing to the computer to type out my story, knowing that this would be the best story I had written for the paper all semester.
Since then, I have had a feeling of excitement about writing for Campus Times. It is not a class, and the assignments are not my homework. It is experience and preparation for my career. I do not try my hardest for the sole purpose of receiving a good grade. I want to do a good job, I want to learn all there is to know about being a journalist.
It was during that interview with the editor of Low that I knew what I wanted to do and what my major should be: journalism.
Some people laugh when I tell them what I want to do with my life. Others insinuate that journalists do not make much money with snide comments such as, “So, you will be living with your parents for the rest of your life?”
My reply is that I am a journalist because I love interviewing, digging for information and reporting it to the rest of the world, or for now, my peers. I know I can and will succeed. Is that not all that matters?
Jennifer Parsons, a sophomore journalism major, is arts and entertainment editor of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at parsonsj@ulv.edu.
