It can be universally agreed that sometimes, it feels good to do sloppy work. In the all-knowing words of John Mulaney, “It is 100% easier not to do things than to do them, and so much fun not to do them – especially when you were supposed to do them.” While it may be tempting to put in less effort, the last two years in News Journalism have proved to me that hard work is worth more than good grades.
As a senior this year, I thought I was immune to the commonly used term “senioritis” or a lack of motivation during your last year of school. Although I wouldn’t say I became a lazy couch potato, I definitely began to take the easy road near the end of the year. Throughout my two years in this class, I wrote many stories of varying quality. When a short story was written and published, I earned a deep sense of gratification. My deadline was met and my free time had been reclaimed, but this feeling was only temporary. I would always once again slip into a state of lethargy which had to be overcome in the following month when my next story was due.
The times that I wrote deep, detailed stories that fully covered my subject, I felt a sense of lack of direction at the beginning. When you spend most of your day doing crossword puzzles and calculating your potential grades, actually getting up and making yourself do some work is a challenge. I didn’t have to struggle for long, though. Eventually, I would get back into the groove of things and rediscover my love of cognitive thinking. After hours of typing away in the dark shadows of my basement, I would press the post button on the story and feel the exact same gratification from my lower-quality stories, but instead, this feeling persisted. I had exited my slump and made myself once again motivated to do hard work.
On top of the fact that it felt good to be a dedicated journalist, I also knew that my strenuous work was doing some good. My investigations were educating my peers and providing valuable information to our readers. Even though my half-baked stories weren’t necessarily bad, it felt good to submit an article that I actually knew would be digested and appreciated. As a consumer of news myself, I could fully appreciate my comprehensive stories for what they were – a reliable source of information.
When your work isn’t just evaluated by the trained eyes of your teacher, the incentive is there to make something good. Aim to create something that benefits the people in ADM. I am grateful for my time in News Journalism because it allowed me to appreciate the value of my effort, avoid some aspects of “senioritis” and learn how to fully give my all.
