This is my first semester as an editor. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes and blunders. I have missed deadlines, forgot who I assigned stories to, given multiple people the same story and run a few wires. I even spelled “academic” wrong in my top headline.
After taking the time to think about some of the standards that we as student editors are held to, I started to question my qualifications. Every other editor seemed to possess a knack for excellence with their section. All of them were well informed about the area of news they controlled. What was I doing? Am I in over my head? When will they realize that I’m not good enough to lead this sports section to the fullest of its potential?
Question after question seemed to swallow me deeper into the overwhelming ocean that was my doubt of my abilities. Every person in the school was now depending on me to know names, stats, and positions of every student-athlete that roams the campus and I wasn’t ready. That is until I saw my first paycheck. As awkward as it may seem, my first time getting compensated for doing something that I had been doing for free liberated me from the pressure.
For the first time I felt like a professional.
The job became less of what I wanted to do and more of what had to be done. For most, the roles should be in reverse to feel the type of jubilation it takes to do your job stress-free. For me, it gave me a blueprint of how I was going to showcase my talents. It’s pretty simple: I like money and it motivates me to become great. I want to earn every penny of what anybody ever decides to pay me. I want to be the poster child for gold diggers. I will claw my way to excellence so that my talents will exceed my pay scale and force people to pay me more.
This job has been stressful, cruel, brutal (take you pick for whichever is worse) and time consuming, but I will continue to weather the storm until I make a breakthrough as one of the best to ever edit an article. Besides, it’s just sports. I can do this in my sleep.