This semester especially I have been extremely busy. I’m enrolled in 19 credits, rushing a sorority and writing full-time for The Daily Collegian among other things. With all of these academic requirements, time consuming extra curriculars and time to have a social life, I live by a pretty strict schedule. I plan out my days so tightly to make sure I actually accomplish everything I need to. This can be problematic in some ways. First of all, it can be dull or boring to know exactly what I’m doing planned ahead all the time. Second of all, it causes me to say no to a lot of things that I would actually love doing. Usually this involves events with my sorority, which I often don’t have time to attend because of classwork and articles for The Daily Collegian. So this time, when the chance arose I decided to say “yes” and trust in myself that I would be able to accomplish the rest of the things on my schedule at a slightly different time then I originally planned.
My Collegian editors texted in my beat’s group chat asking who could run downtown to cover the opening of the new pizzeria, UR Pizza. I immediately agreed to take on the story. In news these kinds of articles are called web updates. The journalist needs to go to the source, get a quote and background information as quickly as possible and then write the story as quickly as humanly possible. It’s a stressful experience to say the least, but I was excited to take on the challenge, drop everything that I had planned and just go with it.
I couldn’t help but feel anxious putting myself in this position. I felt guilty, almost. I had meticulously planned out my entire day and I was throwing that plan away for a single article. It wasn’t even that important of a story, either, it was a simple news break. Regardless, I threw on my coat and sneakers and ran downtown to start interviewing.
I interviewed the owner of the new restaurant and took some pictures of the newly redesigned eatery. I recorded the interviews on my phone to ensure accurate quotes. As I quickly walked back to my dorm, I put my headphones in my ears and began to type direct quotes and information from the interview.
I wrote the article quickly and without much struggle as it didn’t have to be that long, but the time constraint was pretty stressful. My roommate walked into the room, wanting to get dinner and effectively adding more pressure to finish the article as quickly as possible. However, in the end, I was able to write an article quickly and accurately enough to be published within a half-hour of me even getting the story idea.
I really liked being able to deviate from a schedule and live more in the moment. It was a really cool way to broaden my experience writing for The Collegian and broaden my perspective in regards to how I live in my day-to-day life. I will definitely try to be more flexible in the future because it’s a lot more exciting.