Little things matter most
COMMENTARY
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“Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up. These are the best days of our lives. The only thing that matters is just following your heart. And eventually you’ll finally get it right.”
— “In this Diary” by The Ataris.

Did I get it right? Well, I’m not sure yet.

When asked how I chose TCU as a college, I usually just laugh. I had no direction when choosing a school. When I took the SAT, I had to pick a few schools to send scores too. TCU seemed as good as any.

Shortly after, I began getting admissions papers in the mail. I applied and was accepted in a matter of weeks. I didn’t even look at any other schools.

I had a college, but I still had no idea what to do with my life. I started this journalism thing in high school, but the realm of censored high school newspapers turned me off to the field. I entered TCU with the major it seems to place all undecided people in – radio-TV-film.

By chance, during Howdy Week, I met a few enthusiastic wanna-be journalists. They were going to get a job at the Skiff as copy editors, and they decided it would be a great job for me too (thanks a lot JZ and Mark). Eventually, I agreed to go to a staff meeting. At the start of the meeting I had two copy editing shifts. By the end I had four.

And a few weeks later I made the trip to the dean’s office and changed my major to news-editorial journalism. I had been sucked in.

Those 20 hours a week as a fairly well-paid copy editor quickly turned into many, many more hours and not as much money as an editor. But at the time it didn’t matter. I was a sophomore, just getting into my journalism classes and had been taken under the wing of a couple senior editors.

This was where I wanted to be.

I had good friends and we had good times in the newsroom; good times that continued into the very early hours with poker, deep chats and just plain goofiness. And in the mean time I felt I was learning from the best of the best.

I’ve had teachers ask me if I felt I learned anything in their classes. Early on I always just answered that I learned something, I just wasn’t sure if it had been in class or at the Skiff. I didn’t want to burn any bridges early on.

And I have learned some things, but they have come later on. I thank God for the teachers who have pushed me and didn’t take my whining as an excuse. People like Dr. Perry, Dr. Thomason, Doug Clarke, Paul Harral and, maybe the greatest man I have ever met, Phil Record, have not let me slack off, and I think I’m a better journalist because of it. I’ve also learned it’s apparent that the department latches on to one or two so-called “top-quality” journalists, and everyone else’s accomplishments are thrown to the wayside.

In the end, only these five teachers out of the eight semesters I’ve been at TCU will stick with me. Sure there have been a few in other departments that have caught my attention, but I’m not too sure whether all my time was well spent.

That’s when it comes back to my original question: Did I make the right decision by coming to TCU?

Could I have gotten the same education (or better) at a different school? Probably. Could I have had the same constant experience of working for a newspaper or a magazine? Maybe, if I worked hard. Could I have met the same people, made the same friends? Probably not.

So it comes down to an education versus those few people who have helped me these four years. Those people who I have lived with, who I have spent all night partying with, who have listened to me as I cried and bitched about work, who know more about me than I would ever let anyone know.

In his senior column, a good friend said it best: “It just goes to show that it really is the little things that make the difference ... Think about it, what’s better than 3 a.m. Triple Play Baseball with the few people you can truly call your closest friends?”

In the end, the late nights, the fights, the tears and the not so great grades will mean almost nothing.

It’s those close to you who make the difference. In the end, they are the ones who have kept me here. And they are the ones I will take with me when I leave.

Editor in Chief Jacque Petersell is a graduating senior news-editorial journalism major from Houston who would just like to say that, unlike the Spurs, the Mavs are up in their series, neener neener. She can be reached at (j.s.petersell@tcu.edu).