“How much do you want this?”
During a 1-hour-and-40-minute train ride back from a 15-minute Daily Northwestern training, I repeated this question dozens of times. Cigarette smoke from a nearby stranger burned my lungs as I stared out a Purple Line train window.
Transferring over to the Red Line, I shivered and wrapped my jacket tighter around me. An hour passed, and eventually lights from surrounding office buildings lit up the dark Chicago night.
I was shocked to see so many people working past 7:45 p.m. Then I realized that I wouldn’t be upset if I had to stay back an hour, or two, or more if it meant I had the opportunity to write as a journalist.
I knew I wanted this life. Working late into the night and early mornings was more than worth it if that meant I could report.
Ideally, I’d prefer I spent more of my time reporting and less time commuting, but if a long commute meant I could report for The Daily, I would’ve commuted for 12 hours if that’s what it took.
“How much do you want this?”
The answer was “enough to stay still in transit for hours if that meant I could write for The Daily.”
Staying in place is not a practice I’m accustomed to.
I started college full-time at 14 years old at a local community college. I finished high school at 15, then graduated with seven associate degrees at 17.
After graduating from UCLA at 19 with a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and History with a minor in Education Studies, I began my first graduate program at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.
I knew even before I matriculated that I wanted to report for The Daily Northwestern.
At The Daily, I fell in love with writing for Campus and Arts & Entertainment, and after development, explored my interest in local reporting through the City desk.
My dedication to The Daily and journalism served as a strong motivation for another of my intended career paths: law.
Preparing for law school applications while managing full-time graduate level coursework, while drafting an 80,000-word novel, while studying for the LSAT sometimes six to eight hours a day was not easy.
Whenever I became tired, I thought about my love for journalism.
My transition into the legal field isn’t because I’m no longer interested in journalism, or a decision I made on a whim.
It’s quite the opposite. I plan on becoming an attorney in large part because I want to defend journalists accused of defamation. I also want to prosecute other journalists who make egregious errors and who weaken public trust in news.
My career goal is to work as a full-time attorney and part-time legal and political reporter. Eventually, I also want to work as a policy analyst, author and professor.
My time at the Daily has confirmed that I can envision a happy life as a reporter. I’m not choosing a path in law because I don’t love journalism. I’m choosing both because it’s painful to imagine my life without either.
“How much do you want this?”
So much so that I’m excited enough that I can wake up at 5:30 a.m. to read a 61-page congressional investigative report, and so grateful to say I reported for The Daily Northwestern.
My life has been endlessly full of want. A want to report as often as I physically can, to write something — hopefully many things — people are eager to read.
At The Daily, I was able to turn that want into reality.
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