Picky Picky

I am painfully aware of how much I have spent on my degree; I am a first generation college student and I have had to work to pay my own way through college. I know that if I quit I'm screwed, so I remind myself how much I love to write, and tell myself that when teachers and classmates criticize my writing, it's only to make me better.

I think the most valuable thing I have learned at the J-School is how to use constructive criticism. I remember when I wrote stories in 415, Patty Noland would give some of them to KUJH-TV and the Kansan, but mine were never picked. I made good grades, but by the end of the semester, I felt defeated and left out. I was so relieved to walk out of Dole and hear the doors slide closed behind me to begin the summer.

Three months, a wedding, a trip to Jamaica, a grueling slave-labor internship, and two lame jobs later, I was back at Stauffer-Flint begging for more. I was determined to stop being the last one picked for dodge ball. Somewhere in my naïve little mind, I thought I was done being picked on: wrong. Now not only was my professor scrutinizing my work, I had Malcolm, editors and the entire student body (or at least the ones who picked up the paper for more than the Sudoku) ripping it apart.

And alas, the criticism didn't stop when I stopped reporting for the Kansan. The pressure has only increased now that I have the weight of the paper on my shoulders as the campus editor, and with each feeble attempt at blogging I am further convinced that I suck at it.

It's cool though; I can take it. After all the money and hard work I have put into my education, the most valuable thing I am taking away is thick skin. The classes I have taken and the hands-on experience I have gleaned from campus media gave me a decent resume, but my new exoskeleton gave me a basic survival skill needed to make it in any newsroom. Besides, I have more respect for people who make the effort to tell me when I'm wrong.