Photography Editor Tavyon Richardson (‘18)
My college experience has forever changed me. I am not only glad to have this opportunity, but I am also glad to have made a positive impact on so many people. I have also been through many hardships in Alma pertaining to my racial identity, but I am still here.
I am still here because I know I can do better with my life. The perseverance I have shown through these hardships have made me a stronger person in the long run. The people who have talked down to me I now realize are stuck in their ways. And as they stay in their place I continue to thrive and move forward. Many students have a certain image of who they think I am, producing stereotypes from those assumptions. I encourage you to look pass these assumptions and see me for who I actually am.
I grew up through the blight of Detroit, and I have had to create a façade to survive in the city during my childhood.
I am not a talkative person because of this, nor do I show many emotions. In Detroit, was taught to not talk or express my emotions because doing these things is a good way to get caught up in bad situations. Coming to Alma, I learned that it’s okay to show your emotions and express your opinions. I have opened up myself over these four years. I know that I have more opening up to do, but without Alma I would not have grown up at all.
Many of my friends have helped me out of my cocoon of silence. Kappa Iota has helped me understand regardless of who you are, you will always have someone to support you.
My time at the Almanian has also turned me into a much better photographer than my freshman year. With my new skills, I hope to transfer what I have learned to future photographers interested in working for the Almanian next year.
I have had my ups and downs with Alma College. From good times of making new friends, to the bad times of racial tension. I don’t regret going through these instances, because they have made me a better person and I am still here. But it is now time to move on to better things that will also make me a better person.
Thoughts Writer Samantha Anteau (‘18)
Though I have only worked at The Almanian for a short time, I really valued the time that I spent here and the work that I did. After spending all four years of high school working on my school paper, I decided to take a break from journalism for a while. However, after my short time working at the Almanian, I really regret that decision.
Writing opinion pieces for the paper has helped me become a stronger writer and affords me an opportunity to talk about and share the things I love with the campus community. The Almanian provides a platform for people to not only improve their writing abilities, but also to work with some of the most passionate people I’ve met in my time at Alma.
While I worked under Jelly Gilmore as Editor-in-Chief, she encouraged us to be a better staff and worked tirelessly to make the paper as excellent as it had the potential to be. Working with people who clearly care a lot about something is an incredible source of inspiration, and I found that while at The Almanian. Joining the writing staff was one of the best decisions that I made while at Alma, and I would encourage others to do the same.
My advice to current and future students can be boiled down to one of my favorite quotes from my boy, F. Scott Fitzgerald: “For what it’s worth, it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be.” If you want to be a writer, then write. If you want to be a painter, then paint. If you want to be the kind of person that people look up to, be the kind of person you would want to look up to.
Do the things that make you feel the most you, even if they’re scary, and you may find that, in time, you turn into the person you always wanted to be.
Web Editor and Staff Writer Monica Kunovsky (‘18)
Coming to Alma, I thought I wanted to get into journalism and make a career out of it. While my path towards a career has changed, and I’ve learned that writing can be skillfully woven into any plethora of careers, my time working for the Almanian has been one that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
Where else would I be able to write zodiacs and get PAID to do that? It’s a platform that I have been able to use to exercise creative energy, as well as learn about professionalism and work on my communication skills (I may be majoring in Communication, but you can never learn TOO MUCH about how to properly interact with others).
I still remember writing my first article, I spent all week interviewing, nervously tweaking the article—worried that it wouldn’t be up to standards and that I would be fired instantly. I stayed up working on it, until the last possible moment before begrudgingly sending it in, feeling as if my fate was sealed and I would never work for a newspaper organization in my life.
As we can see now, that moment was three years ago, and in that time I’ve been lucky and fortunate to not only be a writer for the Almanian, but the web editor as well. It’s been a learning curve to say the least, just because of how thrown into the position I was. There was never too much guidance or much of a manual given to how to properly execute this position, and there still is a lot of improvement that could be made to the online presence of the Almanian.
Overall though we have come leaps and bounds from where we started, and my time has web editor has shown that I do enjoy partaking in the online realm of branding, making media, and interacting with the monthly trolls or bitcoin bots (you’d be surprised how many messages the Almanian gets asking if we’d like to invest in bitcoin and if we’ve heard of this, ‘cool new currency’).
My advice to those students is to keep going, and to trek it out. Life is going to be messy and filled with agonizing moments where you feel stuck. It’s all in good nature to help build you up and make you solid enough to think quick on your feet when it comes time to graduate from Alma. Don’t take anything too seriously either, life’s meant to be enjoyed and if you get too wrapped up in the logistics of it then you’re wasting time!
