I'm going to change the world damn it!

When my best friend who started college two weeks prior to me told me the first week feels like a month, I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. But now that I have officially been in Boston for one week, I know exactly what she is talking about. I feel like I have done more in Boston in just the past few days than I have done my entire life in Colorado. Maybe it’s the city or maybe it’s the college lifestyle, but whatever it is, I’m excited to watch my life play out before my eyes.

            Since my last entry, I’ve met several people in my dorm and in the dining hall. I’ve even made some friends. So maybe those hellos aren’t as hard as I was complaining about, or maybe I just got really lucky.

            The first week at Northeastern is known as Welcome Week. This is a week jam full of activities to keep us busy, and our minds off being away from home. I did things like an Upper Deck Trolley Tour, a Charles River Boat Cruise, a seminar about living in Boston  (sorry if I staht to drop my r’s), convocation, a barbecue and a discussion with the author of our summer reading book, Dave Eggers author of Zeitoun.

            I’ve also gone exploring the city off campus. I went to a movie in a cab with three other girls at night and felt so grown up. I took the T, Boston’s subway system, to The North End, Boston’s little Italy, for a delicious canoli at Modern Pastry. I walked to the oldest ballpark in America, Fenway Park, for a Red Sox game. It’s ok you can be jealous. I have an amazing city surrounding me.

            But I didn’t come to Boston just for the top-notch Italian food or Red Sox games. I did start classes. I am taking a variety of classes this semester. I have Black Popular Culture, Mathematical Thinking, Interpreting the Day’s News, Journalism at Northeastern, Intro to American History and BLUEPRINT, a leadership club that is incorporated into our schedules and our living learning community.

            Before classes began, all the freshmen in our major met with the faculty of their concentration. So I met with several of the journalism professors. The emcee of the meeting talked to us about how this is an exciting time for journalism. He teaches history of journalism to upper classmen. He always wonders what it was like when The New York Sun, the paper that really started it all, Time magazine, and CBS radio were started by young college graduates. He wonders what it was like to recreate journalism with a blank slate. He envies us because that is what we get to do. We get to be there for the next big thing in journalism.

            This same professor also said that a journalist should think, “I’m going to change the world, damn it!” I whole-heartedly agree. Not every journalist is going to actually change the world, but it should certainly be our goal. The professor added that if we barely reach this goal, that is a life well lived.

      I think I’m off to a great start to barely reaching that goal and living a full life at the vibrant pace of a Bostonian college student. 

The sign at Fenway. I went to the game on Wed. Sept. 8, 2010. 

The Sox beat the Tampa Bay Rays 11-5.