My sophomore Geometry teacher once stopped class and asked us if we could name everyone in our class. While I could name about 85% of my classmates, others couldn't name close to 15%. He decided to challenge us to learn more about each other and while everyone else grumbled, I got where he was coming from.
Before I was a student journalist, I couldn’t really care less to learn about those who were around me. It just necessarily wasn’t a priority.
But when I joined The Roar my freshman year, I found myself in the exact opposite position.
My first solo interview was with a peer of almost two years, but I only knew a little about him. Though once we started the interview, I found myself engrossed in his life and why he pours so much time into what he loves, wanting to continue to learn more about him.
From then on, I became addicted. I couldn’t get enough of telling other people’s stories.
During my early days, I read every single story that got published, satisfying my undying love for learning more about others. But once I became someone who started editing those stories, I often got distracted by the story while editing it, often having to go back to re-read.
I would often think to myself that I was a bad editor by not being able to focus, but I soon realized that it was what made me a stronger one. It made me look at articles from a reader’s perspective and not just someone who is supposed to fix grammar mistakes. It gave me ways to push my writers in the questions they were asking and how to fully tell someone’s story.
This is all why I understood where my Geometry teacher, of all people, was coming from. Because of my journalistic experience, I was constantly seeking new people to talk to and learn about because it made me feel more connected and he wanted that for everyone else.
When COVID hit was when I felt the most disconnected from my peers. I felt my role as a student journalist change and I didn’t want to write about the news happening around me, even if it was the easy, low-hanging fruit to get me points.
Instead, amidst the chaos and uncertainty, I found stories of people to tell: athletes affected with recruitment, those who were going through tough times during the pandemic, and even my own story.
The chaos continued when we learned that our adviser took a new job for the 2020/21 school year and she had no idea who was taking over or if The Roar would still exist.
My entire world stopped that day. The one thing that I loved was hanging in the balance and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue. I didn’t want to watch my passion crumble right in front of me, I felt lost.
The transition, especially during a pandemic, was nowhere close to easy and a lot of people asked me why I stuck with it. I was putting in twice the amount of work to start all over again and rebuild a program that seemingly had a low chance of survival.
But the heart of what The Roar stood for kept me going: Everyone has a story worth telling.
So the long nights I put in, giving up my Friday nights and working through my lunch was all worth it to me if I could get the chance to tell more stories. As cliche as it sounds, when you find the one you love, you’re willing to make sacrifices for it and the work feels less like a chore.
To be completely honest, I don’t need the awards, the praise and the recognition I receive. Because while this is supposed to be an essay about how Journalism has impacted me, it’s also about how it’s impacted my community.
220 published stories under my leadership that give a voice to those who may never get the chance to.
Created small ways of change and recognition to the topics we often want to ignore but need a new way of life.
A newfound space where students are excited to get involved to be a part of the change, to tell their story or to do something fun to promote what they do.
If The Roar taught me anything, it’s that there are over seven billion people in this world and every single one of them has a unique story no one else has and if I can just tell the smallest fraction of those stories, it was all worth the time and dedication I poured into it.
Because in the end, the one thing we want is to feel connected.
And even though Journalism isn’t the path I’m taking with my future, it helped me find what I wanted to do with my life beyond high school. I will be continuing my education at Michigan State University next year to study Communications to hopefully have a career in Sports Media, working with professional sports/school’s creative teams to further continue the storytelling in a different way.