I first wrote this column on March 29, 2023, at 12:30 a.m. in the notes app on my phone.
I’ve often heard people tell me to enjoy college because it contains “the best years of your life.” Now that I’m graduating in a few months, I get what they were saying. To be perfectly blunt, I feel like I’m dying.
My first thought: That number has to be wrong. My second thought: How would I know where I want to go to college yet? I was only 16 years old. And yet here I am, 22 years old, about to graduate with two degrees and 2,103,840 minutes of memories at a university two hours away from home and everything I knew.
The past four years of my life, in the whirlwind of college, in the oversight-free environment of young adulthood, have not been the “best four years of my life.”
I recognized the name from the newspapers we’d been plastering on the ceiling of our room out of sheer boredom. Being a pre-communication design student myself, and Alice a journalism student, we thought we might as well find out more. Flash forward a year and four months later, and I stepped into my position as design editor.
A year and a half ago, I wrote an exhaustive breakdown of AMC Theatres’ promotional video featuring Nicole Kidman. I was a semester into my time with The Miami Student, still learning the ropes and finding my voice as a writer at the paper.
You may have seen me. I’ve been out there a lot — random places, holding a camera. I promise I was working on stuff. Journalism stuff. News. Maybe sometimes I was messing around for art class or because I felt like it. But, like, usually it was work.
At the start of my junior year, I was casually skimming the weekly newsletter from the Department of Media, Journalism & Film in my inbox and saw that The Miami Student was seeking a new social media manager. I hadn’t heard much about The Student but quickly took to the internet to learn more about the organization.
Before my first year at Miami University, I changed my major away from journalism. Thankfully, James Tobin, a journalism professor, somehow saw that, gave me a call and talked to me about the Miami journalism program. After we hung up, I went right back into the system and changed my major back.
AI threatens your ability to get a job. Not simply because using AI to cheat may mean you lack valuable skills required for the workforce, but also because it can probably do your job better than you.
I read constantly. Last year, I logged 36 books on my Goodreads. This year, I’m shooting for 40. As far back as first grade, I’ve always loved getting lost in a book. The feeling of spending my day lost in a whole different world, even if it was just for a few minutes at a time, was indescribable.
Feelings of seasonal depression got you down? Learn about these tips on overcoming the winter blues.
When you leave the country, it’s a given that some things are going to be different, whether it’s politics, currency, language or food. But I did not realize being a few hundred miles from home in the same country, there could also be such stark differences.
It’s human nature to seek an outlet to end the day. For the cowboys of the old West, it’s the campfire. For the traditional American family, it’s the dinner table. For me, it’s the virtual world of my PlayStation.
When I was 18, I sat in a crowded lecture hall at Ohio University, crammed on both sides by people I didn’t know, freaked out about how I was going to keep my head above water. I felt myself begin to panic as I stewed in the warmth of other people when a large man wearing a sweat-stained shirt walked into the room, banged a book onto the lectern and just began lecturing.
If you lived in Normal, Illinois, and saw it the way I did, you would find life to be familiar. You would joke with every out-of-towner about its accurate name, avoid the same potholes for years on end, and, above all, longingly wait for the day you can leave.
Good government groups are active in Ohio again, and you might see some of them holding a Citizens Not Politicians petition. The Citizens Not Politicians initiative is collecting signatures to bring reform to Ohio’s redistricting process.
Growing up in a small town, you’d probably expect that when I graduated high school I would enroll at a college hundreds of miles away from home. I’d pack up and leave behind the place I had spent my entire life.
In the winter of 2022, I found myself navigating the intricacies of Miami University’s sorority recruitment. The hybrid model allowed me to speak to different chapters on Zoom from the comfort of my dorm room and, yes, wear pajama pants all day instead of heels.