Note: As the year winds down # and graduation approaches # the editors at The Crow’s Nest want to offer their insight on life at USF St. Petersburg. This is the third in a three-part series.
Journalism wasn’t my first choice.
It wasn’t even my second or third choice.
In 2001, I graduated high school and began working for my dad’s electrical company as a residential service technician. I also enrolled in the fire fighter program at St. Petersburg College. That goal didn’t last long, however, so I took the most obvious route – the electrician program at PTEC. That also seemed like a good decision until two years later when I realized how much I dislike the trade.
I then became a human pinball, bouncing from job to job and major to major. It created the illusion that I was progressing, but really I was spinning my wheels. School was something I was supposed to do; not something I wanted to do. So I quit.
After grinding through a warehousing job for a couple of years, I realized that I was going nowhere without a college degree.
Once again, I returned to electric and school without purpose or direction. That lasted until 2012 when two people – probably feeling sorry for me – suggested that I give writing a shot. I had enjoyed writing since I was a kid, but never considered it a viable career choice; it was nothing more than an extracurricular activity.
I followed the idea, however, and enrolled in Creative Writing and a class ambiguously titled Journalism.
Now, this might sound hyperbolic, but for the first time in my embarrassingly long college career I felt inspired. I felt like I had found my calling. To me, the two classes went hand in hand. Creative Writing expanded my ability to develop a narrative and show readers what I was writing about. Journalism, on the other hand, taught me basic reporting and gave me an opportunity to explore the field as a potential major.
Two semesters and three articles for SPC’s the Sandbox News later, I was on my way to USF St. Petersburg with an associate degree and a mission – to become a journalist.
In my first semester at USFSP in spring 2014, I took three classes, including News Editing I. I was excited to learn that the professor of that class was a former Tampa Bay Times reporter with more than 40 years of experience in the field. But my neurotic tendencies also had me crapping my pants.
Until that point, I didn’t really know if I was cut out for journalism. I knew I could write adequately, but that is only half the battle. And at 31, I wasn’t heading back to the drawing board. Journalism was my last stop # changing majors again was not an option.
I decided that if I didn’t walk out of USFSP within a couple of years with a bachelor’s degree, I would accept my mediocrity and bounce around the workforce, doing meaningless grunt work until death do us part.
Fortunately, it worked out and the professor suggested that I give The Crow’s Nest a shot. So I applied during the summer semester, which is when I met our current editor-in-chief.
Not long after summer ended, she assigned me as news editor. I was pumped. This would be my first time getting paid to do something I loved. Sure, I still had and have a day job to pay the bills. But getting paid even a little to gain experience in news reporting? Yes, please.
That gig didn’t last long, however, due to my aforementioned – and much loathed – day job. But our editor-in-chief was gracious enough to keep me around as copy editor. In January – after our former managing editor graduated – she offered me that position. After a little deliberation because of my job and full-time class load, I said screw it, slashed a day of work off my schedule and took the role. I believed it would make me a better reporter and sharper writer, and it has.
Now, here we are # the final issue of the semester and, for most of us, the end of our run with The Crow’s Nest.
I am not very nostalgic or sentimental. For me, this isn’t a time to get emotional as I reflect on the past eight or so months. Honestly, I don’t think any of us will. We know what The Crow’s Nest is – a place to gain experience, get our work published and maybe make a few friends along the way. It is a place that has hopefully prepared us, even just a little, for the daunting road ahead.
After graduation, many of us will head our separate ways and The Crow’s Nest will become a memory. But we will carry the skills we have learned into our futures.
