Q: Have you been doing journalism since high school?
A: No, not at all! We didn’t have much of a paper in high school. But I’ve always been an avid consumer of news media, and I love creative writing. I also love the process of discovering stories and researching stories and connecting with people and extracting broader truths and themes from things going on around me. So the first week of school, I joined the Misc as a writer. And then almost immediately I became an assistant editor, and then I became an editor of my own section, and then a senior editor — each semester I’ve ascended to a new level. It’s just such an accessible organization and a good way to find your niche.
Q: Where are you from?
A: I’m a Canadian citizen. I spent most of my life in Saskatchewan, one of the prairie provinces in central western Canada, which was really a great way to grow up. And then just before high school, we moved to Naperville, which is a city of about 100,000 just outside of Chicago, sort of a typical suburb. Just before high school is a pretty awful time to upset your life and your routine and your environment. It was also weird coming from Canada. It wasn’t the culture shock it could have been coming from someplace else, but it was tough.
Q: How did you hear about Vassar?
A: I hadn’t really heard of it. My dad and I got started looking at colleges a little late in the game because you don’t have that same sort of “shopping period” in Canada, and I was the first. My older sister, as sort of a matter of necessity, went to the University of Illinois, because she is in a wheelchair and they have the accommodations, and it’s a good school as well. So she wasn’t really overwhelmed by these choices the way I was. I knew I didn’t want a big university like the University of Illinois, which is thousands and thousands of people…this big sprawling campus. I knew I wanted something small. So my dad and I accumulated a whole library of those college guide books, and Vassar kept popping up. There are a few liberal arts colleges in the Midwest, but the concentration of small liberal arts schools is on the East Coast, so I took a week out of school and we did a tour. Vassar just made an impression on me. I wasn’t predisposed to liking Vassar; I didn’t know anyone who went there. It was really just a matter of coming to the campus and walking around and talking to people. So I think it was really the perfect way to be introduced.
Q: What time of year did you come?
A: It must have been late October because it was only a couple of weeks before I applied early decision. And actually the campus shouldn’t have really sold me the way it did because the weather was awful — all the leaves had fallen off, and it was sleeting. But still, I was pretty taken with it.
Q: Looking back, do you think it was a good decision?
A: I do. It’s been great. I think of myself as the kind of person who can adapt and create a positive experience for myself just about any place, and I know that there are myriad excellent schools in the country, but I think the Vassar community is really unique, and it was definitely a positive choice.
Q: What’s unique about it?
A: There’s just this strong sense of community and Vassar-ness that pervades everything. Even though everyone has different interests and there are different groups and people have their different niches, there is sort of a core Vassar identity. I was surprised by that. You’d think you’d need some sort of rallying point, like a football team that does really well, to get that sense of community, but Vassar students don’t really seem to need that. I guess it’s because people like it here so much.
Q: What is your major?
A: Sociology. It wasn’t a discipline that I had any familiarity with before coming here. I took an intro class, and it seemed like just the perfect blend of creative thinking and abstract thematic thinking and more practical applications. And I just think that the course offerings are so interesting. A good example is the class I’m taking right now, Health, Medicine and Public Policy. Until this class, I’d never really thought about medicine having a sociological component. So it’s interesting to take social concepts like community and normalization and deviance, and then apply them to health policy, which you think of as something so scientific.
Q: What kind of time commitment is involved for the editor-in-chief of the Misc?
A: It’s a huge time commitment. It’s around the clock. I mean, we do have a production schedule, and there are certain times when I have to be in the office, and I have to put the paper up at a certain time, so there is a structure. But at the same time, I feel like I never really set it down. There are always things I can be doing, stories I can be searching for. I can always be studying layout and design, I can always be talking to people and gathering ideas and getting in touch with advertisers.
Q: What do you like best about it?
A: We’re obsessed with it — we all are. And that’s what makes it really fun. You have people like Sam Rosen-Amy, for example. He’s a contributing editor now, but he’s been the photo editor, he’s been the editor-in-chief. And other people who are section editors have also been senior editors and writers. So we’ve all switched positions so many times and done so many things for the paper that it’s strongest when we’re all on the same plane and sharing our ideas and collaborating. Everybody has a lot to do, because there’s a lot of work to get done and not a lot of people to do it, but everybody participates pretty equally.
Q: Have there been any scary moments?
A: Wednesday morning is when we send the paper off to the printer. So Tuesday night, everything has to come together, and hours before your deadline to the printer, you’ll wonder how you’re going to fill the big yawning space on page three. People take it for granted. I mean, before I came here and got interested in newspaper production, I just took it for granted that the New York Times was going to come out every morning, and it was going to be flawless. And when you’re working on the paper, you do have that sense of inevitability — it’s going to come out one way or another because it has to. But at the same time, there are so many things that go into it and so many uncertainties.
Last year during the national midterm elections, we had a red state-blue state map on the front page — and the entire country came out purple. It was sort of an interesting image, but it was not what we were going for. So we had to scramble and send it back and negotiate with the printer. So that kind of thing is scary, but those things do happen.
Q: What have you gotten here that you wouldn’t have gotten elsewhere?
A: Well, I know for a fact that very few of my friends at other schools are taking classes that are as unconventional as the ones I’ve taken. A lot of the courses here take a very focused look at a very specific issue or problem, and then they use that specific issue or problem to examine the larger implications for society. For example, there’s an English class called “Because Dave Chappelle Said So,” which is very focused and unconventional, but it’s not just about Dave Chappelle. It’s using Dave Chappelle to look at bigger questions about the media and race relations and comedy as a literary form. Plus, the curriculum is always changing. It’s not the same professor teaching the same class in the same core curriculum year after year. It’s very dynamic, which is great. So the specificity but also the holistic quality of the classes is something I don’t think you find at many other places.
Q: Have you thought about what you want to do after Vassar?
A: I expect I’ll go to graduate school. Actually, I’m certain I will. I’d always thought it was something I’d do immediately after graduating while I’m still pretty enthusiastic about academics and studying. But now I’m thinking it might be great to travel for a few months or to get an internship or to do something completely different. My mom is lobbying for me to take the LSATs and go to law school, which is an option. But I’ve always thought it would be journalism. Either Northwestern or Columbia would be my dream of dreams.
