Maggie Kissick: I’m thankful I pushed past the scariness of the Journalism 1 class to do Harbinger

Sitting down in my freshman year Journalism 1 class, I spent five agonizing minutes trying to get the courage to walk over to Tate’s desk. Finally, I approached him and asked — with a shaking voice — if he could look over my story. 

As he read it, he harshly pointed out every flaw. The lead was cliche. My interviews were boring. The story had no focus. After three minutes of him tearing apart the story I had spent two weeks writing, I squeaked out a “thank you” with tears forming in my eyes and asked if I could go to the bathroom.

I immediately broke down crying.

When my mom picked me up from school that day, I told her I wasn’t going to do journalism next year. Clearly I wasn’t cut out for the whole Harbinger thing. It wasn’t until she forced me to call a former staff member, who told me about how she loved deadlines and her fellow staff members, that I decided to give it a try.

And thank God I did. Three years, more tear-inducing Tate edits and 75 stories later, I’m glad I didn’t let J1 scare me away.

I’ve gotten to write about literally whatever I want, from a feature story about the dangers of concussions to a review over Sephora products. I’ve met some of my best friends through cracking jokes about oxford commas and started mosh pits with fellow jerds at the J-rave in Dallas.

I had pieces of my hair ripped from me by strangers on the Los Angeles metro. Survived on a diet of Panda Express and Starbucks for four days in Dallas. Became a Lana Del Rey fan after Greyson forced me to watch the “Ride” music video at deadline. Sat inside a random psychic’s living room in Atchison, Kansas to get a scarily specific tarot card reading for a review.

All of these humorous, rewarding and unexpected experiences happened because I wiped away my tears after that first journalism-related cry.

So each time I’m eating Chick-fil-A and belting the “Pitch Perfect” riff-off in the backroom at deadline, I laugh how I would’ve missed out on so much if I didn’t do Harbinger. I’m so thankful my mom talked some sense into me and I had enough patience to not quit journalism before I even got started.