Undergraduate / how editorship helped me discover career goals - UW prompt [3]

Prompt: * a character-defining moment,
* the cultural awareness you've developed,
* a challenge faced,

* a personal hardship or barrier overcome.

Recommended length: 500-650 words

My Essay:

As the only junior on the senior staff of "The Rising Tide", our high-school newspaper, I should have seen it coming. Every single person except me would be graduating. A light, an alarm bell, something loud and wild should have gone off in my head. I would be the only person returning the next year to the staff. I would have in my hands the sole responsibility of continuing the school paper only rescued from extinction five years before by a girl perhaps even more ambitious than I- and certainly with more ideas.

I would have to be the editor. Editor, or editor-in-chief, it would turn out, became a misnomer, but that comes later. Ms. Smith, the newspaper adviser, came to me for a meeting. She spoke of next year as if it was obvious that no one other than I would be running the show. I took on the responsibility with gusto. I'm known to take on the most Mount Everest-like tasks, because I love being directive and shouldering a great deal of responsibility.

During the summer before this year, the newspaper staff went to a "journalism camp" at Central Washington University. Nerdy? Certainly. But it was incredibly beneficial. The learning section I signed up for was "editorial leadership". I realized, hey...I get to be the boss. It soon became much more than that. That session showed me how I could make something my own. The paper became me, my baby, my passion. I scribbled volumes of notes of my goals and ideas and thoughts and inspirations at the camp. I learned everything from organizational methods to what to do with that one misfit kid on staff.

I am not particularly passionate about journalism by itself. This sounds bad, but it's true. I do like writing news stories, and digging for information, and compiling it cohesively. But what ended up interesting me more was the entire process, and what I could do with it. There's the actual layout of the page done on Adobe InDesign (which takes hours and hours longer than you think it will...goodbye sleep), there's editing others' stories, there's contacting local businesses for advertisements, there's planning the production schedule for the whole year around life stopping, earth-shattering high school events like prom, there's brainstorming ideas for stories, there's making very important decisions.

That's what I found I love more, the whole process. This is what showed me what I want to do as a career. I am incredibly ambitious and I tend to take on the most ambitious projects I can, for the sole reason that I love being responsible. This is what has shown me I'm interested in business and entrepreneurship, I like planning, organizing, testing, execution, and reaping the results. I like having a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. The reward is always great: a feeling of accomplishment, the drive to accomplish more and the knowledge that I can.

A few issues ago, I delivered a stack of papers to a calculus class (the staff hand-delivers the papers to each class when the issue comes out.) When I came in with the paper, I said, "Rising Tide's here!" People started cheering and hurried up to get an issue. This made me so happy I almost started crying. They wanted it! All of my hard work, all of my efforts and nights working until 3am on layout, sketchily staying alone at school until midnight, lack of sleep, food and air, made these people happy. It entertained them. The fact that I could do that gave me such a good feeling.

Conclusion is wonky...I'm unsure how to sum it up or where/how I can insert more of a thesis statement in the beginning. Thanks!