I didn’t want to join this newspaper.

When my photography work started becoming my main passion and focus, my parents started pushing me to get my work officially published. When thinking of the best way to do that, they started pushing me to join the school newspaper. I was immediately against the idea, and asked them: wouldn’t I have to write?

Up until that point, I always thought of myself as more of a math kid. Writing essays in school about “The Odyssey” or “Fahrenheit 451” never struck me as that fun or engaging. It’s not that I hated writing, I just never wrote about anything I was interested in.

Yet as junior year rolled around I gave in and made the last minute change to my schedule, knowing that in the end, my parents were right: it would look pretty good on my college application.

A few days into my New Trier News career, I realized that shockingly, yes, I did have to write. While we were pitching our first round of stories for the year, I anxiously chose a story on the boys golf team and got to work. After breaking through my first pre-interview nerves and finishing my first draft I realized that, after all, it wasn’t too bad. Maybe I even enjoyed it.

Looking back, I couldn’t be more grateful that I made that final schedule change. The experiences I’ve had throughout the past two years have been remarkably eye-opening. Not only have I been able to report about everything from rat infestations to state championships, I’ve also learned quite a bit about myself, the biggest of which is to not put myself in a box. So, if I had any advice from my time with the news, it’d be to just try it out. Join the club. Try out for the team. This school offers more experiences than you could ever imagine, and what you may think is a pointless resume booster could end up being something you want to keep doing far after you receive your diploma.