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In case you haven’t guessed, I love The Lawrentian.
I must make a confession: I did not read The Lawrentian until I was approached for an interview in winter term of my first year. I served as an anonymous source speaking out about working conditions for student employees for a news article. Shortly after, my name appeared in The Lawrentian for the first time in an article about Pan-Asian Organization’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month events. After a little cajoling from the girl who’d interviewed me and a few hangouts with one of the news editors, I was finally persuaded to apply for a job here towards the end of my first year.
As a creative writing major who had been writing novel-length prose pieces since I was 10 years old, I naively assumed that this job was going to be easy. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t. I still remember the first two articles I wrote: a preview of Zoo Days for the News section and a review of Sarah E. Navy’s breathtaking senior recital in vocal performance for Arts & Entertainment. These articles quickly forced me to face my habit of perfectionism in writing. I used to spend hours carefully choosing each word for my creative writing projects, afraid that one bad phrase would ruin the entire effect. But when your first draft is due on Monday night and your final draft is due on Tuesday night, you realize very quickly that perfectionism kills good journalism. Writing for The Lawrentian helped me discover a new technique for writing academic papers: just because you have 12 hours to write a paper does not mean you should spend all 12 hours writing it.
I’ve had the honor to cover some major news stories, such as Dr. Brittany Bell’s promotion to Dean of Students and Chris Clarke’s new position as Vice President for Student Life, events raising awareness of sexual violence during It’s On Us Week and the Indigenous People’s Day celebration. I’ve had the opportunity to write feature pieces on impactful student organizations like Black Student Union (BSU), Alianza and the Lawrence University Disability Working Group (LUDWiG). I’ve celebrated some of the most interesting artistic events on campus, like the Senior Art Show for the Class of 2022, the winter choir concert and my friend Matvei Mozhaev’s exhibition exploring Russian history through Soviet and contemporary Russian art. I’ve channeled my life experiences into poetry and short prose pieces for the Variety section, shared opinion pieces in this column ranging from testimonies of my personal relationships with race and queerness to critiques of media propaganda and, finally, published my most fervent opinion of all: that Glinda and Elphaba from “Wicked” should’ve been lesbian lovers. Some of these pieces were difficult, time-consuming and even baffling to write, but I am proud of every single one of them.
But more than anything, I’m grateful for the incredible, fascinating people I’ve met through working at The Lawrentian. I’ve been introduced to several of my friends because I was sent to interview them for an article and ended up bonding with them through that experience, and some of my closest and dearest friends are my Lawrentian colleagues. It’s no exaggeration to say that The Lawrentian has been one of my favorite parts of my Lawrence experience.
Anyway, being a student journalist is cool. You should totally do it.