Over the course of the past two years, I have learned a lot about what it’s like being on a publication and the communication skills required for it. Being able to talk to people in the school you’ve never talked to before is important for getting everyone as many times in the yearbook as possible. Inclusivity in the yearbook is what makes it complete. Hosting good interviews, asking good questions, and finding unique things about the students is essential to making a good story. After being on yearbook for 2 years, I’ve learned to become more open and fluid in conversations I have with others. 

     I’m glad to have learned what it’s like to have a responsibility of being an EIC because it’s much more than just telling our classmates what to do in class and with their pages. It involves a good amount of trust and reliability to make sure others can make corrections on their pages, instead of us (EIC) constantly reminding them of what needs to be done, and overall, making sure our Yearbook is how we want it and completed. I wish that I knew that it needed a lot more reinforcement of teamwork than I thought it did. With mostly a new staff, it was a new process and not as easy to get everyone to communicate with each other and ask each other for help. 

     For deadlines, I learned that no matter what kind of deadline it was, whether a soft deadline or the hard deadline, it’s extremely important to get things done on time. Even though students may be busy, it’s important to manage their time and learn how to find enough time throughout their day to get pictures, write stories and captions, and design to meet the deadline. At times even I was behind on deadline, and to overcome it I found a day to devote all my time to finishing my page and making sure I had all the content for it. 

     As a Chief Visual Editor this year, I’ve learned a lot about the different designs and ideas brought about by new staff members. Most times, I drew inspiration from others spreads and learned to try and change it to add my style while maintaining the overall theme. As a co-editor in chief, I learned a lot about leadership and giving tips to staff. I think that we were successful in helping our classmates edit and proof their pages, getting them to communicate to take pictures and assign what their responsibilities were. In this aspect, the staff really worked as team and embodied the constellation and star stuff theme.

     For second semester, I think that it was challenging for us to meet deadline and getting pages done. We kept having to push back our deadlines to make small corrections that could be done easily or sometimes even complete blank pages. However, we got the book done with just a little more added effort at the end of the semester and completed everything on time, just by a hair. Being a staff member as an EIC has showed me what it's like work hard with a team and has allowed me to communicate with others in ways I wouldn't find anywhere else.

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