Being in journalism is my childhood dream come true.

I think when I was around 6 years old, my older sister walked into the living room where I was sitting and watching cartoons, not thinking about anything in particular.

“Why don’t you read?” she asked. “When I was your age I loved reading.”

It’s good to note my sister is 12 years older than me, and when she was my age she was probably hanging out with chickens. She grew up on our family farm whereas I grew up in a small house in a small town in the small state of South Dakota.

One would think small living makes small dreams, which might be true for some. Maybe it was even true for me at first.

But then I picked up a book, and my world flooded with opportunity and mystery.

The next thing I knew, I was telling everyone I would grow up to be a writer, and “Just you wait Grandma, you’ll be reading a book with my name on it one day.”

Fast forward through my adolescent years; nobody needs to read about another person’s terrible awkward stage and brief stint with violet hair. I became more unsure of myself and what I wanted to do with my life. I was used to being uncertain; I was diagnosed with anxiety my sophomore year of high school and depression my junior year. Senior year was the hardest year of my life, and I struggled immensely in school and socially.

I wish I could say it changed for me when I started attending Iowa State, but I failed nearly every class my first semester with a double major in horticulture and global resources. I realized something needed to change, and I had a discussion with my father.

That discussion brought me back to the basic question: What do I want?

I typically would’ve never had an answer to such an open-ended question, but I remembered my friend sent me a photo of our time capsule letters we left one another. We wrote them our freshman year of high school and opened them our senior year. I wrote to her that I hoped we would stay in touch when she becomes a big shot lawyer and I become a famous writer.

After seeing that, I considered writing again. And I thought about it some more. Then I thought about it a lot. Now I am working toward a degree in journalism and mass communications and have had achieving grades since the switch.

I’ve been working with the Iowa State Daily for about a year, and I am constantly learning and growing from my interactions and experiences. I get to write every single day.

Growing up around agriculture, the saying “All else dies, but land lasts forever” reverberates in my mind often, and I disagree with it.

Topsoil erodes away, but good writing lasts forever.