Member in the Spotlight: Anthony Williams

2009 has been a heck of a year. While I know that’s been the case for almost everyone as we tackle a recession and prepare for a new decade, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I had the craziest.

I didn’t graduate in December 2008 like I’d planned, but I nonetheless took an internship this spring. Having never lived outside of my home state of Texas, I drove 2,700 miles to tiny La Grande, Oregon – going the long way of course, due to winter. After 12 weeks there I returned home to finish college and couldn’t get a job doing anything – anything.

I graduated in August, had a couple of freelance jobs to keep me steady, and then traveled outside of the country for the first time. I was a part of NLGJA’s student project at the annual convention in Montreal, meeting and talking to people I’d admired for years like Jeffrey Kofman and Michael Slezak.

And then I was back home, with nothing to do except pick my cousin up from school. But somehow, about two months later I wound up here at The Dallas Morning News.
There have been a lot of transitions this year, some forward and some back and forth, and I think a lot of growing up. No transition has been more interesting than the one now, navigating my way into the full-time workforce.

I’ve almost always had a job, so it wasn’t so much that. It’s changing your mindset, going from knowing what was ahead in six months or a year to a more wide-open road. No more internship applications, no more midterms and finals. I didn’t go to graduate school, but I imagined applying for jobs after school was like presenting a thesis on my life and work history to prospective employers.

It sucks playing the waiting game, but recent college graduates have got to be better at it then others, seeing as for the last four or more years we’re constantly waiting to hear back regarding a scholarship application or something extracurricular. That and, oh yeah, waiting to be grown.

So you graduate, and for those first few weeks or more, you’re a bit picky with where you apply and what for. A month later you’re sending your resume and cover letter off to Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Nope, doesn’t take long for desperation to kick in.

Then you get phone calls from bigwigs at those random places at 7 a.m. They don’t know you were out late hanging with old college buddies (the transition away from college life is a whole other topic). Interestingly enough it’s rather easy going through job applications and phone interviews. Things from your past that were hell give you examples of situations faced on the job. Like a difficult coworker at the student paper, or not knowing what exactly to do in the face of shrinking readership numbers but steadily attacking the problem anyway you know how.

Before you know it, you have your first in-person job interview. If you’re like me, it’s somewhere you totally didn’t expect to call you, a place that was letting people go left and right while you went to school down road. Then you look up, and you’re at your own desk there.

That’s not the end though. I’m out of the school cycle now, got a boost from NLGJA, and I’m hypothetically set, as people like to say. Thankfully I got yet more good advice from someone here on what my outlook should be. Just like how college students can’t coast through school, following the syllabi, and expect to get where they want to be without doing something extra on their own accord, that’s how you have to tackle the world.

Yes, the main objective is to handle the day-to-day, but I’ve still got to go after what I want, make my case and stand tall above the rest of the crowd. In other words: more theses.

Many of us leave high school eager to leave behind the pettiness and social structures, only to find college much the same. Well, life’s no different. You do what you do to get by while also going for what you may think is impossible, unattainable. I know I may sound like I’m speaking from a high horse, but I’m not blind to my many degreed friends who’re still trying, or those close to graduation, scared. Or even those who’ve been on their grind for years and don’t know how to handle our economy’s new problems. I’m just standing here as an example of what’s possible, because if I can make it here, everyone else should have Pulitzers and six-figure checks.

Am I still a little unsure of the future? Definitely. But after finding myself taking photos of sheep getting sheared on an Oregon farm, walking the Hollywood walk of fame and laughing uncontrollably in a Canadian McDonald’s this year, I have a job. And I was still able to make it back home for Thanksgiving.

I obviously had a lot to be thankful for, but I’m more grateful to continue walking one step at a time to see what’s ahead for me.

By Anthony Williams