The professor had started passing back graded papers. I knew I couldn’t get another Medill F. After my mistake of failing to realize it was Davis Street Fish Market instead of David’s Street Fish Market, I was already on thin ice. One more factual error could send me back to the house for my demise, for my turn to pack my bags and go home. Hopefully I had done well enough this week reporting at the polls to keep me around another week. My name was finally called. I walked to the front where my professor handed me back the shark attack assignment. Hands trembling, I could see all the red ink that bled through the pages. Finally turning over the graded assignment, I saw a “7/10” circled at the top. I was still in the running to be Medill’s Next Top Student.
I watched a lot of America’s Next Top Model in high school. Between the marathons of older cycles on VH1 and two new cycles premiering each year, I was often glued to the television, following each step of the competition. I’d predict who was going to make it to the last three when the girls were still at semi-finals, laugh when hilarity ensued (like when Bre’s granola bars went missing in Cycle 5 or when Natasha had borderline phone sex with her husband during Cycle 8) and “ooooh” in awe of the final runway challenge. The show had me hooked.
So, when I struggled with my freshman journalism classes, I turned it into a game. Instead of feeling bad for myself when I’d do an interview but forget to ask for the person’s age or was unable to write a lede appropriate for a story about a man’s decapitated hand, I just imagined Reporting and Writing as if it was America’s Next Top Model. But it wasn’t Tyra teaching girls how to be successful(ish) models – it was Medill professors training us to be successful journalists. My outrageous imagination is what kept me sane when I was thrown into Medill's sink or swim waters.
The classes fit almost perfectly into the recipe that made ANTM a pop culture cornerstone. Each 201-1 lecture that taught the foundations of reporting was like when Miss J showed up to give runway lessons or when Tyra facilitated ridiculous smize and tooch workshops. Then we’d go to our first lab class of the week, where we’d do our smaller exercises such as factchecking or current events quizzes. These were the weekly challenges. And our bigger assignments due at the end of the week were the photo shoots of course. That was the moment you needed to impress.
But the thing about my own crazy version that set it apart from Tyra’s incarnation was the fact that it wasn’t really a competition. Instead of being against a bunch of other girls with modeling dreams, I was instead working with peers who were going through similar experiences. Unlike some of the girls in ANTM house, I was there to make friends. There were no plans for sabotage, no catfights (for the most part), no eliminations. If anything, I was competing against myself to make sure that I owned up to my potential.
I remember when I got my first Medill F. Upon seeing those seven letters, my heart sank. I think I even wanted to ugly cry. But then I realized that getting a Medill F wasn’t the end. It was like being in the bottom two but still avoiding elimination. It was a chance to improve, to even do a rewrite. A shot at redemption. And so I moved on. I didn’t want to get another one, so I worked to learn from my errors.
That first journalism class pushed me to my limits. Instead of reading a bunch of theoretical work and writing papers, I was thrown into the cold waters of journalism, and although the beginning was tough, I quickly learned to swim. Approaching people for interviews became less nerve-wracking, editing for AP Style soon internalized and feeling like a real journalist gradually settled in.
Although there might not be a $100,000 contract with Covergirl cosmetics or recording of my own Pot Ledom single at the end of all of this, it’s all right. Almost two years after my first journalism class, I think I’ve figured out how things usually work. Medill isn’t about spoon-feeding its students. Its curriculum is set up to test us, to mold us into the journalists of tomorrow. It may use tough love to get students to that point, but I know at the end of the day Medill is always is going to be there rooting for me until I make it.
