Position(s): News Reporter (2020-2022), Statement Correspondent (2021-2023), Director of Recruitment and Onboarding Winter 2022.
Section(s): Statement, News, CTI, Statement
Semesters at The Daily: 6
When I visited Michigan in high school, I pointed to the “Best of Ann Arbor” signs hung up around Pizza House and told my parents I was going to work at The Daily. It was the first student organization I joined and the primary consistency in my first three years of college. Though it’s been nearly a year since my last byline, I never made sense of the chaos of my stint here. But as I approach the end of my final fall semester, I feel ready to see this for what it really is.
I expected my time here to follow a concrete path, aligning with the organizational hierarchies of whatever section I chose. Instead, I hopped around four different sections, constantly shifting my own goals and expectations. I wrote amateur reviews for already canceled TV shows and attempted new hire education presentations with less than a year of journalism experience and constantly malfunctioning projectors. I never felt like I understood this place or what I was supposed to do. Nobody told me. It was the best and most difficult introduction to true adulthood I could have asked for.
But after a lot of trial and error, I found my footing. In a fluid combination of Statement and News, I was given the privilege of a platform to cultivate my voice as a writer and person.
Like many people here, I’ve always said I wanted to be a writer. I have marble notebooks filled with unfinished elementary school novels and took every English class offered at my high school. But The Daily transformed me from someone who talked about the lofty concept of writing to someone who sits deliriously in the late hours of the newsroom and actually does it.
This place, contrary to my high school beliefs, is no mere extracurricular. It is a full on institution and real world crash course in journalism. The first piece I ever wrote that I really believed in covered frustration and debate about Michigan’s lack of a journalism major. Ironically, this was the piece that finally made my love for and commitment to this work click.
I have walked into the then-brand-new State Street Target and asked some very thrown off customers what they thought of the store. I have approached people on ticket lines looking for interviews and been told “if you’re not a reporter for ‘The Daily Caller,’ then no thanks.” I have sat down in Sweetwaters and listened to my favorite local celebrity sincerely tell me about the habits of fairies. I have sat in the Bentley Historical Library for hours, parsing through Ann Arbor circuit court decisions spanning from May 1970 to April 1973. I have sandwiched newly public self revelations in between analyses of my favorite comedians. I have long maxed out my Otter.ai minutes listening to passionate people trust me with their knowledge and stories and it has brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined.
Journalism gives me a way out of my head and into the world. It presents an unparalleled way of learning and being that allows the pursuit of the story to supersede all else. In spite of—or really, because of—the learning curves inherent to my experience here, I have learned what it means to treat words and their meaning with care. I have found clarity, love and purpose in this profession I cannot seem to get enough of. And while I struggle to conceptualize a career without panicking, I find comfort in the knowledge I have at least found the right feelings to follow.
I would be remiss not to thank the two people who embody these feelings of love and purpose exactly. Martha and Justin, I have imagined writing your thank yous since the day I met you. You have both profoundly changed my life for the better and completely transformed my college experience with all your hilarity, intellect and support. So thank you, thank you, thank you.
Martha: I don’t think I’ve been through more with anyone else. You have a way of bringing out the best in me and showing me how to welcome the world with open arms. I feel deeply and unbelievably lucky to have gotten to call Amsterdam home with you. I am so proud of how far we’ve both come and even prouder that we got to do it all together. To many more adventures filled with belly-laughs, museum debriefs and of course, Delirium. Thank you for being the sister I always wanted.
Justin: Sitting on the floor with you at four in the morning will forever be a turning point in my life. You were my first friend that made me feel comfortable enough to be my truest self. Your sense of humor frequently makes no sense to me but makes me cackle all the same. From truly bizarre European hostels to high holidays services with my grandparents, having each other’s backs over the last two years has meant the world to me. Though I know it’s not really your style, I can’t help but tell you how much I love and appreciate you and our friendship.
College throws us for an interminable loop. We enter bright-eyed with seemingly unlimited options. We use what little we know to make educated guesses of what is the best or right or smartest thing to do. We manage to create a life off pure instinct. And at some point, these guesses harden into the narrative of our Michigan experience. They become the immalleable truth. Seemingly out of nowhere, everybody in leadership positions is two grades younger than you and there is no next year. In that space we are left with two choices: to berate ourselves for the guesses we made or to believe in them with unmarred trust and pure hope.
TMD, I love you and I choose the latter.