Leadership has been a very big part of my time in yearbook. Throughout the years I have tried to work my way up into as many leadership positions as I could so that I would be ready for the day when I was in charge.
My freshman and sophomore years I was responsible for running the social media pages for our student publications. I had to make sure to stay updated on Instagram and Twitter so that the publications stayed relevant and appealing. I was also in charge of running a website that sold pictures the publication took to the public. This required searching our photo archives to find the best photos and then posting them. After updating the website with photos, I had to make sure that the social media pages posted about the update so the community would know.
Junior year I stepped into the new leadership position of photo editor. As photo editor I was in charge of assigning students to take pictures at school events. This required me to know about all school events that were happening and making sure that our publications staff would be there, ready to work. To make this happen, I hosted monthly photo meetings before school. The entire publications would show up and we would go through the month that was coming up, talking about the events and discussing who would cover them. After the photo meetings, every week I would send out a reminder to who was taking pictures. This type of leadership required a lot of work and focus because the publications depended on the pictures we took.
My senior year I stepped into one of the biggest leadership positions I have ever had. I became the sole editor-in-chief of our publications. I now have the responsibility of picking a theme, designing the templates, and making sure that the rest of the staff is keeping up with their work. It has been a challenge figuring out how to balance all of the work, but I've learned that properly teaching my staff to be passionate about their work makes my job easier. My goal for the publications is to teach them as much as I can so that they know even more than I do by the time younger students get to my position. I want to be able to watch the publication that I have loved for the past four years grow and prosper so that even more students can discover their hidden love for journalism.