ABOUT ME

When I was younger, I never thought I would ever do something like journalism where I would need to put myself out there and talk to people. I was a super quiet and shy kid growing up, and that’s still somewhat true about me, but yearbook was something that never crossed my mind in the first place. I would rarely talk to people, but I was also super smart, and I wanted to do something else other than just go through a normal school day every day. 

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In middle school, I remember some other kids talking about the yearbook in class and I remembered thinking that it would be cool to work on something like that. Once I reached high school, I joined the class out of curiosity because I wanted to see how it was really put together and what my roll would be in it. I honestly had no idea what I was getting into and I didn’t know anyone else in the class at the time. I was at first shocked at how many people I would have to talk to every day and I soon realized that the high school yearbook was a lot different than how the middle school staff explained it to be.

 

During my first year on staff, I was just a normal staffer; running out to get interviews and giving them to someone else to place on the spread. I didn’t like it all that much, but at the time I didn’t know how much it was affecting me. I started to talk a lot more to other people, and by my second year on staff, my family and new friends even began to notice how I was starting to come out of my shell. 

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I came back my second year where I was given a promotion as the year’s business manager. I stayed in the room more but got to work more with design and the behind the scenes aspect of the book – which has always been more interesting to me. I started to like the class a lot more and was given a lot more leadership opportunities like running my own team and actually getting to place the spreads instead of only running to get content. I know that this is perfect training for a job in the future that most students don’t get to experience at this age, and I’m so happy that I’m now a few steps ahead because of the class. Since I was doing a lot more things that I enjoyed, I started to come out even more and now I can start a conversation instead of just being a part of one. During this time, I also played on the varsity golf team for the school since I was a freshman, and being stuck with the same three girls for a few hours while you play is a lot more enjoyable when I can talk more, and I know that the yearbook class is the reason. 

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At the end of the year, we had to finish the book at home due to the pandemic. Only a handful of kids from the original staff had continued to work on the book from home, so I was given a lot more responsibilities at the time. With only about nine students working on the book at the end, I was surprised by how well it looked when it finally came out. I continued to work on plans after that for the next year’s book. I worked over summer at an online camp where I designed next year’s cover as well as the graphics and color pallet. 

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My third year as a senior, I was promoted to being editor in chief. I never thought ever that I would do that when I was a first-year staffer, but I had come a long way since then. So far this year, the other editor and I have to run the class through online schooling. It’s taught me to be more organized and more on top of what other people are doing as well as my own work. It’s been hard and kind of sad with missing the in-person class, but we’ve been able to build this book in a pandemic just as well as if we were at school. I never thought that the shy person I once was would ever be able to do something like that.