By CAYLEE HANNA
Editor-in-Chief
Change is something that I’ve always had a difficult time with. Some changes in my life have made me feel like I’m on top of the world, while other changes in my life have forced me to take a step back and evaluate how I should handle the situations that I am put through. My time at Amarillo College has changed my life for the better.
My college journey started off with a major change. Originally I wanted to begin my college experience at West Texas A&M University. Many of my friends were planning on attending college at WT and I wanted to experience this journey with them at the same university.
However, I made the decision to begin my journey at AC because I have the ACE scholarship and it covers everything for my classes at AC, whereas at WT I would have to pay for the things that my scholarship did not cover. I could not have made a better decision for myself at that time. I have had many opportunities at AC that I could not have received anywhere else.
One of the opportunities that I was given at AC was to join the presidential scholar’s program. This program pushed me to do my best academically and helped me meet amazing people along the way. Lesley Ingham was always by my side when life would get rough and now I have someone in my life that I know I can always count on.
If I never went to AC then I never would’ve met people like her and I cannot thank them enough. To name a few more impactful people in my life that I met at AC, I definitely have to include Jill Gibson and Maddisun Fowler. They recruited me to become part of student media and I have gained so much from this experience.
I received work experience in the media industry as well as the opportunity to come up with ideas for projects and be able to actually do them. It’s important to be involved on campus and I’m lucky that student media was the reason I was involved.
Being on student media also allowed me to work on the newspaper staff as well as the magazine staff. I started on the magazine staff as a page editor, but I was able to work my way up to assistant editor by my second semester.
When I joined the newspaper staff I was a page editor and staff reporter with no interest in becoming the editor-in-chief, but after a few semesters of growth and leadership, I knew that it wasn’t something that I couldn’t handle. In fact, I wanted nothing more than to become the editor. Being the editor for The Ranger has made me realize how important it is to stay on top of my work and to communicate with my coworkers better.
Even though life got stressful at times and I struggled, I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world. Looking back at the last two years of my life has made me realize how far I have come. When I started my degree I didn’t know what I was doing and where my journey was going to take me, but thanks to AC I now know what my plan is and I cannot be more appreciative.
My next step is transferring to WT where I’m sure I will receive many more amazing opportunities. This new change is extremely nerve-wracking because I love AC so much, but I am excited to see where my college career will take me.
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