At my high school, we had a small newspaper called “The Voice.” It wasn’t the greatest, to be perfectly honest, with the year I joined being the year the school budget cut our ability to print physical newspapers. Plus, there were unfortunately many students whose writing prowess wasn’t up to snuff, but we were stuck with them since otherwise we wouldn’t have any articles.
Still, I enjoyed it and made the best of it, endearing my teacher enough that he made me one of the editors (which more or less involved staying after school on Tuesdays and sitting in the computer lab). I wrote several articles that I was proud of, and even got one physical issue put out before graduating.
When I got to Hofstra, my mother encouraged me to join anything and everything, including the newspaper. It was instantly welcoming, and I instantly got to work writing reviews. I remember my first articles being reviews of the then-new “Star Trek: Discovery” and the latest episodes of “Steven Universe.” I tried to make it to every meeting of the Arts & Entertainment section, even when nobody was there (which I think earned me brownie points with my editors).
Then one semester I applied for the assistant editor position. I didn’t get it. Then the next semester I applied for it again. I got it! I was excited, to say the least.
As assistant editor, I enjoyed my basic duties of proofreading articles before they were sent to the copyediting team and putting the articles on the website after they were finalized. I wasn’t too keen on having to attend budget meetings every week (where the main reason for my presence was usually to give my editors ideas for headlines), but I made do and got some fun stories out of it. One time, my editor needed a better picture of Tom Holland in “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” meaning I can now say that I’ve had a newspaper editor demand pictures of Spider-Man, just like the character J. Jonah Jameson.
I am glad I joined the Chronicle, and hopefully I can use the skills I learned during my time here in my future career.
