My first weeks at the Daily were spent trying to find a way to quit. I thought that I had made a bad choice working at the student newspaper when I don’t want to work for a newspaper in the future. I stuck with it out of my own fear of having to tell my editors that I quit. That was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

I came into college wanting to work in video production. One of my friends had already started working at the Daily and told me that they were looking for people to help do videos. It seemed like a great way to get my feet wet.

As it turns out, there was a lot of talk at the Daily about creating videos and almost no actual creation of videos. I was known as a ‘photographer.’ I had never touched a DSLR camera until the day before my first assignment for the Daily.

I taught myself how to use a camera by playing with the settings and reading about photography terms online. I decided the best way to get better was to take a lot of assignments. I started taking as many as I could, some weeks doing over 10 assignments (the normal amount was two or three). I remember one paper in particular that I had taken all but two photos in, because I was taking so many assignments.

I got to do assignments I never thought I would be able to. Being on the sidelines of Jack Trice Stadium, in the media row at a Hillary Clinton speech and on the court at Hilton Coliseum were a few of the things that really stood out to me.

I applied for the assistant visuals editor job for the second semester last year because the current editor at the time was leaving to study abroad. I got the job and starting thinking of how to improve the Daily’s system.

This year I’m the visuals editor and have established the video team. We are spending some time getting it off the ground, but when we are ready we will be providing consistent video content for the Daily.

I’m glad that I didn’t quit the Daily when I wanted to. Even though it doesn’t follow exactly my career goals, I’ve made friends and experienced things that have made my time at Iowa State so much better.

I’ve also stepped out of my comfort zone and wrote a story that ran on the front page.