Road to success.(Society of Professional Journalists campus chapter leadership)

SPJ leadership role helps prepare you for later

The newsroom is its usual hubbub of activity. Reporters fight for too-few computers and tied-up telephones. I joke with my co-workers at The Post, Ohio University's daily independent student newspaper, and answer the stream of questions from writers on my city staff. They often laugh at my frazzled expression, teasing me about my undying devotion to "organization," symbolized by my overstuffed clipboard. But they also realize my senior year is filled with multiple duties, including being president of the campus SPJ chapter and a working student journalist.

The managing editor yells "budgeett!" and all the editors pile into the lounge for the evening meeting to determine the content of the next day's paper. An hour passes. With that meeting done, I put my clipboard into my overflowing mailbox, grab my black satchel and rush out the door to Scripps Hall, home of OU's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. …