Yo—I’ll tell you what I want. What I really, really want.
-Spice Girls
This past week I took a crack team of The Other Press staffers to Kamloops for the Fall 2012 Western, Prairies, and Northern regional conference for the Canadian University Press. The conference, affectionately referred to as “WPNCUP,” was chockablock full of useful insights into the newspaper biz, and was a great opportunity to see what our counterparts are writing about at other Canadian colleges and universities.
However, while the conference was indeed full of helpful tips and tricks, one of the things I was most struck by was the type of people that generally seemed to fill the pages of student newspapers: driven, smart people who know what they want. Imagine that!
I came to the whole newspaper game a little later than most—already in my mid-20s, and having done years of arduous soul searching to figure out what I wanted to do. However, the students at WPNCUP seemed, for the most part, to be fresh-faced wunderkinds already working on a professional level as, basically, real journalists. Watching today’s youth passionately and articulately debate about the future of journalism, it was apparent that these kids knew exactly what they wanted to do with their lives—and they were doing it.
I don’t know where these people get their drive, but I’m inspired by it. If you’re one of these people who already know what you want to do with your life (whether it be driving a race car, curing cancer, or writing for the newspapers), I want to take a moment to applaud you. Can you share some of your secrets?
And, if writing for the newspapers is what you know you want to do, why don’t you stop by a The Other Press meeting, Mondays at 6 p.m. in room 1020 of the New Westminster campus? If that’s what you really, really want—make it happen.
SHARON MIKI
