I can remember coming to Slippery Rock University as a freshman and moving into Building A like it was yesterday. I can even remember what I was wearing. Isn’t that cheesy? But here I am about to graduate in about a week.
Coming into SRU, I was a shy chemistry major who hardly left my room and yes, I am well aware that is not the most orthodox way to spend your college career. So after a very rough first semester, I switched my major to communication and focused the rest of my college career on becoming a successful journalist. Of course it is safe to say that my journalism courses were very helpful and helped me obtain a lot of knowledge in the field of journalism, but I owe all of my practice and experience to The Rocket.
I have had the pleasure of serving as The Rocket’s news editor for the past two years and let me tell you, it has certainly been one interesting journey. Coming into The Rocket, I had no idea what this position held.
I did not know I would be designing the news section on a weekly basis, I did not know I was basically the eyes and ears of finding out information for the student body and I certainly did not know that I would be working on staff of very diverse people with a wide range of personalities very different to mine. I was incredibly intimidated and quite frankly did not even know if this job was for me.
Yet, Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “do one thing everyday that scares you,” and that quote was motivation enough for preserving through all of the hardships that came along with the job and with time, practice certainly did make perfect. I mastered the art of Adobe InDesign creating the design of the news section with ease, I should have a doctorate in professional eavesdropping and snooping by now, and the friends I have made on The Rocket staff are some of the most inspiring and supporting people I have ever met in my life.
I’ve written around 100 articles for The Rocket and that, without a doubt, is experience that I would not have had the opportunity to have anywhere else, but experience is not the only thing I gained out of this position. I watched myself grow not only as a writer, but as a person too. I came out of my shell and my room literally became a place where I solely slept. I think that’s incredibly important because I feel there are some jobs you have to just pass the time and make some money, but The Rocket was never that for me and quite frankly, it got to the point where I stopped viewing The Rocket as a job. For me, it was of an opportunity to spend time with amazing people who all had one goal in mind: to create an awesome newspaper.
I very much look forward to reading The Rocket as an alumna of this university and I am very excited to see what the new staff is capable of doing. I am very confident that the high reputation of this paper is going to be left in good hands. As for all of the friends I made at The Rocket, I hope we keep in touch and I wish you all of the best with your future endeavors. It is going to feel weird as we will not be spending our Wednesday and Thursday nights together anymore.
It’s been real, The Rocket. I am going to miss you very much, but I will never forget you, as you provided me with my roots in the field of journalism.
