On Going Half the Way

Photo courtesy of Connecticut College Archives.

Many of us realize after our junior internships that the world out there is full of templates and politics. In here, we have freedoms: the freedom to avoid Friday class, the freedom to play our favorite songs on public radio, the freedom to dab dorm hallways with the faint scent of burning marijuana.

In here, Crozier-Williams 215 here, we have the freedom to be a student-run test kitchen.  We can create personalities for ourselves in our writing without having to adhere too strongly to a confined style. We can brainstorm, compile and attempt our ideas on these pages before we have to make major career decisions.  College is cool if you think of it as a microcosm where you can take on pseudo-leadership roles and emulate the real world in a sub-real way.

I was prepared to feel young at my internship this summer, as an editorial intern at a small magazine, but didn’t realize how that feeling would materialize – my editors had kids my age. My voice sounded young on the phone.  My idea pitches were a little bit off.  This happens when you come into a place that’s been doing what they do, and well, for 30 plus years.

But this is more fun, because it’s ours. It’s fun to be one of 15 students in charge of making something better.  It’s also fun to prove to ourselves that even 18-22 year olds can produce a content-filled, interesting weekly newspaper, with an interactive website and a good readership base.

In March of my freshman year, I walked into Cro 215 for the first time to offer to help with layout, and the Editor-in-Chief gave me the entire Opinions section. “We don’t actually have an editor,” she said. “It’s just one page! Do you want it?”  The page was almost impossible to fill, the Voice office was almost always empty, and the stereotype attached to the paper was simply that it was unread.  We’ve improved since, each new Editor working off the other’s progress. Ben Eagle made our office interactive and filled our sections with more professional writing.  Claire Gould brought us online, upped our accuracy, and equipped us with a handful of social media tools.  I’m just trying to just keep momentum rolling, and I am unrelentingly proud of our work. We’ve become a student forum for the buzzwords at hand: J-Board procedure, drinking policies, “where our money goes,” Living and Learning, and a change in Harris Dining hours are addressed this issue alone.  We have a staff of motivated, creative, thoughtful students who interview, write, edit, market, advertise, film, draw, design and hyperlink to create this publication. We’re working to make small ideas run in big ways that could at worst do nothing, and at best positively affect the culture of this college.

Thank you for your readership.  We will continue to produce issues we’re proud of, and to welcome your submissions.  Have a wonderful break.