If you walk into the Miami Student newsroom on any given day of the week, you will find clusters of humanities students working on important, up-to-date stories that are relevant to everyday life. Then, tucked away quietly in the corner is me: the random biology major that probably shouldn’t even be there.
As a STEM major who edits part of the newspaper, I am proof that if you nod your head confidently enough, you can barge your way into any room you don’t actually belong in. To say I am the black sheep of this organization would be an insult to actual black sheep, who at least contribute their wool to society.
Nobody knows me
If you asked half of the TMS staff who I am, they would ponder for a moment, then realize that they have absolutely no idea. It would probably go something like this: “Never seen her, but next time she’s around will you let her know the trash is full and we need a good vacuum going?”
The truth is, nobody knows who I am because I’m never around. I’m in the cool-kid groupchat, but I’m too intimidated to even send as much as a reaction emoji, terrified that my emoji choice might expose me as an imposter. (Was the laughing emoji too unserious for a professional position?)
I have access to the newsroom, but I’m afraid to walk in and get asked, “Who are you?” Then, I have to go through the awkward explanation that I edit the section they don’t even know we have, and they proceed to ask, “Right. So… who are you?”
To be fair, on production nights, I am technically in the room for those four hours. But I hardly engage in social interaction because I’m too busy writing my prelabs and eating the free pizza.
Writer’s block
I’m pretty sure the right hemisphere of my brain completely withered away as soon as I decided to go into STEM. Everytime I go to be creative with my writing, I just stare at the wall because my brain won’t stop reciting alkanes and resonance structures to me.
To show you just how great I am at my job, I didn’t even come up with the idea for this story by myself. I was sitting in the newsroom, whining about how I had total writer’s block, until the Managing Editor Elisa gave me this grand idea.
She threatened to use her skills as a photo whiz to take really bad photos of me if I didn’t start typing immediately, but I’m afraid the photos already exist. You try to take a cute photo after you’ve been packed in a tiny room with 30 other people for four hours. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I shudder to think what my camera roll would say.
You really have no idea how difficult it is to come up with a new story idea every other week, just in an attempt to seem funny. My worst fear is someone reading my story and thinking, “Man, this is garbage. Did she know this was published under the humor section?”
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If any staffer is actually reading this, please don’t boot me from the groupchat. I promise I will send a more fitting emoji tomorrow.
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