The fall semester is well underway at my day job at the university, and I am settling back into a familiar rhythm.
I teach four classes this semester. Three in person on Tuesdays and Thursdays and another online.
It is the beginning of my sixth year at the university. I have been here long enough that I can no longer get away with calling myself “the new guy.”
Six years is an interesting milestone.
It is long enough to see students arrive as freshmen and eventually walk across the stage at commencement.
It is long enough to watch uncertain young writers develop confidence in themselves and their work.
And it is long enough to realize that, while semesters tend to blur together, the students don’t.
This semester, I get a particularly vivid reminder of that every Tuesday and Thursday.
My teaching day begins with a sophomore-level news gathering and writing course. It is a core class for communication majors and, for most students, one of their first serious introductions to reporting and media writing.
Most are sophomores, although there is an occasional freshman.
One of those freshmen this semester was a high school senior just six months ago.
Think about that.
Not long ago, she was worrying about prom, graduation and whatever else occupies the final months of high school.
Now she is sitting in a university journalism classroom learning how to interview people, gather information and write a news story.
There is something exciting about teaching students at that stage. Everything is new. They don’t know everything they don’t know yet.
Of course, neither do the rest of us.
Later in the day, I move to my junior-level feature writing class. It is an upper-level specialty course primarily for journalism majors, although it has also become a popular elective for students in other disciplines.
The difference in the room is noticeable.
These students know their way around campus. They understand deadlines. They have survived enough college classes to know what professors mean when we say something is due at 11:59 p.m.
More importantly, they are beginning to look beyond the classroom.
Internships matter now. Portfolios matter. Clips matter. The question is gradually changing from, “What do I need to do to pass this class?” to, “How is this going to help me get a job?”
Then comes my final class of the day — digital journalism, a new senior-level course we added to the curriculum this year.
By late afternoon, I am teaching students who are approaching the other end of their college experience.
Most have just returned from impressive summer internships. They have worked in real newsrooms and dealt with real deadlines.
They are no longer merely talking about careers in journalism. They are preparing to begin them.
About half will graduate in December. The others should follow in the spring.
And somewhere during that long teaching day, it occurred to me that I am watching several years of growth compressed into a few hours.
In the morning is a student who was in high school six months ago.
By midafternoon are students beginning to seriously think about internships and careers.
By the end of the day are seniors talking about graduation and job offers.
Same classroom. Same professor. Very different places along the road.
It reminded me of a line often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
The attribution may be debated, but the sentiment certainly isn’t.
Education is a journey, too.
We tend to celebrate the obvious milestones — acceptance letters, internships, awards and graduation. But most growth happens quietly between those moments.
A student who barely speaks during the first few weeks of class eventually conducts a difficult interview.
Someone terrified of having a story critiqued learns that editing isn’t an attack but part of the process.
A student who once struggled to write a lead eventually walks into a newsroom and files a story on deadline.
They don’t transform overnight.
Neither did I.
Six years ago, I was figuring out the university just like my students were. I was learning names, systems, expectations and probably where I was supposed to park.
Today, I have students I first knew as nervous underclassmen who have graduated and begun careers of their own.
That is one of the great privileges of teaching. You get a front-row seat to other people’s progress.
There is an old proverb that says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
College works much the same way.
For one student, that first step might be walking into a freshman-level classroom six months after leaving high school. For another, the next step might be an internship.
For someone else, it is sending out résumés and wondering where life will take them after graduation.
My job is to meet them somewhere along that road, teach them what I can and hopefully send them a little farther down it.
Then another group comes through.
Six years into this job, I suppose I’ve been around long enough that I can’t call myself the new guy anymore.
But I haven’t been around so long that I’ve forgotten what makes the job worthwhile.
Most days, all I have to do is look around my classrooms to remember.
Source: Freepik.com