Do-it-yourself mentality

Sonya's last post was inspiring - I checked my high school paper and proudly discovered that a .pdf version of each issue from the past year is easily accessible online from the high school's Web site. Now the question is whether the staffers or the campus's tech team is putting it there.
And I know my college paper is online. But I'll admit I have no idea how it gets there.

Perhaps professional career-based journalism is exactly the same as college -- we learn as we go, and often in on-the-spot training.

In college, one can be a journalism major and never set foot in a newsroom or studio aside from class fieldtrips (and depending on luck and professors one may be able to avoid that completely).
But students have a choice, and so do we! The good students, the ones who find a job in their field after graduation, are the students who don't just go to class and do their homework. The good students are the ones who seek out the campus newspaper or TV or radio station and ask for a job. They're the ones who make it a priority to get experience doing what they want to do, outside of the classroom. There are
 always excuses (and often good ones) for why not to do something, but the serious students know the best way to learn is just to do it yourself.

And I've learned that the do-it-yourself attitude also applies to professional publications. Even when you're the new kid on the bottom rung, you don't learn by doing only what you're asked. You have to ask to do new things, to watch other people and learn.
Just like in college, the people who actively look for new ways to learn are the ones that will succeed.

So that's my little rant, and lesson of the day: Seek opportunity because it won't happen on its own.