I haven’t written a column in around five months. And I never would’ve expected that.
In the midst of the chaos that is online school and an almost-full-time job, I could barely think thoughts of my own let alone put them on paper.
I started online classes with a shred of doubt. I was terrified. I have a scholarship to maintain and I had a full course load plus a new job as news editor at The Aquinian, St. Thomas University’s independent publication.
As a third-year student, I was able to see the vast differences between online and in-person learning. Most of our classes were asynchronous, meaning they were to be done on our own time, and that meant we were doing our classwork with little to no support from a professor.
Beginning my new job, I was in charge of news. That meant pitching story ideas for that section as well as writing and editing. But story pitches for news don’t come easy when the world is in the middle of a pandemic.
Very few of my stories this semester were about something other than COVID-19 or online school. I felt like I was stuck in a loop, writing stories that all followed a similar theme.
About a week and a half into the semester, we had a snap election. I covered the Green Party that night. I was alone on a patio in the cold weather with no coat and I felt intimidated by the journalists who knew what they were doing and had so much confidence. They would walk up to someone and say, “hey, we need to interview you now.” And it would work. But I felt meek and overpowered when I’d ask for an interview and have to reveal I was from a student paper. This was the moment I realized that we had to make a name for student journalism.
We started covering breaking news, protests – we indeed made a name for ourselves. I wrote a story with the help of my co-workers about Clinic 554 and the outburst in the community and we ended up making the Canadian University Press newsletter in September as one of the top three stories.
It started there but it didn’t end there. We made a point to cover and properly represent Indigenous news regularly. Then, a big story came. There were allegations surrounding a university doctor. Our team worked for 20 hours straight after a protest in Fredericton to make sure we accurately covered the story. About a week later, the doctor was suspended and we released another breaking piece.
That last sentence sounds quite powerful when I read it to myself, but in reality, if you saw me crying at a table in a coffee shop while making phone calls with fingers flying across my keyboard, it wouldn’t look so powerful.
In our Digital Journalism class, we released a 10-episode podcast called Isolation U. I got the opportunity to host the last episode with my co-worker and classmate Aaron.
Despite being online for school and feeling defeated from the amount of classwork, the work we were producing for our little Fredericton paper had me feeling elated.
It was getting closer to the winter break. I would get to go home and see my family, take a break from the world of breaking news.
Then, Fredericton returned to orange phase after the second wave of COVID-19 arrived. New Brunswick closed their side of the Atlantic Bubble. With all of the confusion happening surrounding the Atlantic Bubble, my friends and I decided we had to leave as fast as possible to avoid getting stuck in Fredericton for Christmas.
We heard the news of the end of the bubble at 3 p.m. and were on the road leaving the province by 4:30 p.m. This means I forgot most of my stuff.
We stayed at a hotel in Truro for the night and I made it back to Cape Breton the next day. I finished my classwork from home and that brings us to now.
I’m finally here writing my last column of 2020.
I think we can all agree that this year sucked, but here’s what I’m grateful for:
1. None of my friends or family were affected by COVID-19 so far and we remain safe and healthy.
2. I worked with an amazing team of student journalists this year who turned into close and trustworthy friends.
3. My friends Kenzie and Haley helped support me through the scary times and all the ups and downs.
4. My roommate Olivia is always just a room away if I need to lay on the floor and rant or ask her to watch a movie with me.
5. Despite not having my grandmother with us for this Christmas, her favourite holiday, I’m forever grateful to be here with my family supporting them through our first Christmas without Nana.
6. I made it out of the semester with a GPA that will put me in a good spot with next semester and on the road to securing my scholarship for my final year.
7. A vaccine because oh my goodness, I don’t think I can write many more stories about this whole COVID-19 thing.
This column was originally published in Saltwire Network on Dec. 28, 2020.
Hannah Rudderham Portfolio 