After a wonderful, crazy, life-guzzling semester of working on this newspaper, my career in college journalism is coming to a close.
And, after five years of taking leaky buses, questioning Aramark food, wondering when floor tiles would be replaced in various Luther Bonney classrooms and trying to take advantage of every opportunity that came my way, my career as an undergrad is also winding down.
A lot of faculty, administrators and students have been telling me lately that I’m “getting out at the right time,” based on the turmoil going on at this university.
On the other side of the spectrum, a lot of professional journalists have been telling me that I’m entering the market at exactly the wrong time – newspapers nationwide are cutting back, and the reporter jobs that have always been competitive have become even more so.
Well, call me na’ve – because I likely am – but I’m really not all that worried.
Now, this might sound like a sales pitch (I swear I’m not involved in the new USM marketing campaign), but I really think that my education at this poor, cash-strapped university had a very large role in the comfort I feel leaving it.
What do I mean by education?
It’s not about the classes, although they certainly helped by teaching me both how and why to think.
But really, it was the first time I took an incomplete – because it showed me that no matter how much time I have to do things, I’m not going to feel any more motivated to do things I don’t want to.
And it was the time I sprained my ankle in lacrosse and had to trust someone else, every day, to properly and comfortably tape me up so I wouldn’t keep doing the same thing over and over again.
How about the time I rode from Gorham to Portland in the passenger seat of a university administrator, and was reminded that no matter what someone’s position is, he or she was once wearing your shoes – and probably remembers what they were like (or can at least tell you where to find new ones).
It’s definitely the time a teammate lent me her car so that I could drive to my grandfather’s funeral, and I crashed it along the way – because no matter how much you screw up, people understand, and things rarely are unmendable.
I can’t forget the freshman roommate who was so cool that she somehow convinced me to start smoking – and then the one, horrified look from my best friend that told me I’d better stop, because if I was willing to sacrifice who I was, my best friend wanted nothing to do with me.
Yes, even the first (and only) time my car got the boot, which is a pretty damn good reminder that it’s usually best to be responsible all the time, and not just when I need to be.
Though it’s probably a cliché, it seems that I’ve learned far more from my failures than from my successes – although encouragement has certainly helped me along.
This means that, if history stands, I really have nothing to worry about.
If I screw up and find myself in a job or a relationship or a situation that’s not so cool, I’ll get out of it someday, and I’ll have learned something.
And if the opposite happens, if I find that dream job/man/life, well, that’s pretty cool too.
The trick, sometimes, is knowing the difference.
USM has suddenly begun to realize that the great direction it thought it was headed in was more destructive than anyone realized along the way. And, while $8.2 million is a bigger mistake than I ever hope to make, I think what happens from here on out will come under the context of having learned from it.
Journalism, likewise, has been heading in strange directions, and probably without people or producers even realizing it. It’s going to be my job to learn from the errors of others, and to make a few mistakes of my own; to figure out what works and what doesn’t as I try out this whole post-college world.
I’m a little afraid to graduate, to be without the “I’m a student” excuse for slacking, but if history stands, slacking a little – and getting a nice kick in the pants reminding me why I shouldn’t be – will probably be to my benefit.
So goodbye Free Press and my readers, thanks for keeping me in check when I screwed up too badly, and for occasionally telling me when something was done well.
And goodbye USM. Although to be honest, I’ll probably be around – I haven’t yet learned that the time to fill out job applications is now.
Sarah Trent
Executive Editor