Adventures in the real world

I've been working at my first post-grad job for almost two months now, and not a day goes by that I don't reflect on what this huge change in my life has been like. I recently went back to Harrisonburg, the college town I know and love, to visit loved ones. While there, I met up with a former professor who was a huge coach for me in terms of reaching my career goals, no matter how lofty they felt.

After talking about the start of my career for a little while, he suggested I start keeping a journal and log what this process is like to me -- for multiple reasons: it's good in the moment to take a step back, it'll be good for me when I want to reflect and it'll be great if I want to give advice to others years from now. I figured on top of all that, it'd be a great way to share a little with others.

For starters -- the sheer use of time at work is so different in the journalism world from a lot else. News never sleeps, so someone always has to be on top of it. I typically work from 2:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. and I currently work weekends, so my days off are in the middle of the week. I don't usually have a lot of common free time with others, so I'm always extremely appreciative when I do get to spend free time with love ones.

My sense of normalcy for time has been largely distorted. When leaving work the other night, someone just starting their shift greeted me with "good morning!" -- to which I responded, "good night!"

Aside from the time differences, this job has been wild and wonderful. I have no idea what to expect going into each day. I mean of course there are tried and true aspects of each day I can look forward to, but I can never predict what breaking news will happen or when it will break. This makes every day exciting, in a sense. I still have meetings and deadlines, but at any given moment my plan can change. I've had to be quick on my feet -- something I imagine I'll always be thankful for.

One of the most interesting aspects of my job has been the shift in how I consume news. When at work, as I hear of breaking stories I first distance myself from it so I can efficiently and accurately get it out to the public. Then later, I can actually reflect on the news as an individual. When I'm not at work, I'm constantly trying to stay informed. I felt like I was pretty well-informed prior to starting my career, but it's a different ball game now.

I made this graphic while reflecting on my time so far in the Queen City.

I'm still so new in this career and field that I can say for a fact that I have plenty of room to grow, but I feel confident in how far I've already come. As much as I know I can still learn, I believe there is so much I have learned since the beginning of October when I moved down to Charlotte. I feel so fortunate to be doing what I love in a beautiful city so recently after I was taking classes and loading up on extracurriculars. I can't even begin to imagine what's to come, but I am absolutely loving where I'm at.