You have to work it out at LMU

Back in February 2020, I had the opportunity to talk to Matt Welch, editor-at-large for Reason magazine. Welch had worked alongside our director of student media, Tom Nelson, for the college newspaper at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). As a burgeoning college journalist, I wanted to ask him about the state of student media and its future implications.

Apart from talking about the economics of student journalism losing the immediacy and variety of outlets in the online era, Welch also talked about the importance of student journalism as a practice ground for the professional field.

“A lot of the errors I see made by 20-something and even 30-something journalists, in their choices, not their actual errors, is … I feel like they didn’t go through what it was like to be a student journalist,” Welch told me. “They didn’t make those mistakes on campus so they could kick their own ass figuring out how not to do that when they work for New York Magazine at age 29.”

“We work that stuff out in college, and figured out what’s an intelligent way to do that [and] what’s a dumb way to do that,” Welch continued.

That same idea of working it out in college has stuck with me ever since our conversation. With just two weeks left at LMU, it’ll also be the takeaway I get from the past four years.

Throughout my time at LMU, I learned the intricacies of being on the executive board of a club, how to recognize certain plants as native or invasive species and how to conduct good research. That took a lot of time and energy, especially talking with mentors and peers and admitting to mistakes and forgetfulness when appropriate.

A lot of my older work when I entered LMU is cringeworthy to read through now, either because it’s poorly structured or built on stubborn opinions I couldn’t reject more strongly today. Fortunately, through the help of countless professors, editors and peers, I’m a much better writer than when I started.

I admit that my look back on LMU is a deeply personal one, and not necessarily an endorsement for everyone starting their freshman year here. Much of my writing over the past four years has been critical of the University or its related institutions in one way or another, and I leave LMU knowing more about the structural problems that need fixing with regards to transparency, free expression, etc.

At the same time, I can’t deny the environment that this school gave me to grow out of my bad habits and sharpen myself into someone unrecognizable from four years ago.

It’s still unreal for me to be leaving LMU and heading out into the real world. So much of my life has been thinking about college and it being this big, monumental step as the beginning of my real life. Looking back, that was short sighted of how much I had ahead of me and how much of my college experience I would take with me in the years to come.

Around this time of year, the University likes to tout the phrase, “once a Lion, always a Lion.” I don’t know if I have that same fealty to LMU as a whole, but I do have that connection with the experiences that made me who I am today. I’ll sorely miss Monday production nights at the Loyolan, Tuesday night meetings with the Animation Club, the internships out in the Ballona Wetlands and every single moment that I learned something new that made me into the person I am today.

I am eternally thankful for the education LMU has given me, but I’m even more thankful to be able to put that education out into the world; it was the opportunity to work that education out.

This is the opinion of Cristobal Spielmann, a senior environmental science major from San Antonio. Email comments to editor@theloyolan.com. Follow and tweet comments to @LALoyolan on Twitter, and like the Loyolan on Facebook.