As I approach my college graduation in the coming days and make the uncertain but exciting transition from undergrad life to the real world (spoooooky), I can’t help but reminisce about a certain organization that made the most profound impact on me during my time at ORU, where I was able to let my talents and creativity thrive and meet a really rad group of people along the way. For those of you who miss the barrage of editorial cartoons I post on social media every other week, I am talking about my university’s on-campus student led news media organization, The Oracle.
I always knew that I wanted to be a part of The Oracle when I came to ORU. From the first time I picked up a copy of the paper, I realized that it was a potential outlet for me to gain experience as an aspiring graphic designer and leave my impact on the publication in a powerful and meaningful way.
Either that, or I flipped to a page with a hastily drawn cartoon on it and thought, “Pfft, I can draw better than that.”
(I think that was part of it. Actually, that might have been a huge part of it.)
I remember applying for a multimedia position on The Oracle as a freshman straight outta Compton high school. They didn’t have any paid positions to offer me, but what they did offer was a freelance job as a layout designer. I saw the opportunity and took it. Granted, it wasn’t what I had hoped for and not all that exciting, but I TOOK IT. Eventually, I did have a chance to create an illustration for The Oracle based on a fun little section in the paper called “Rutlandisms”. For all of you outside the ORU bubble, they were quirky little jokes and phrases our former president Dr. Mark Rutland would say often in our weekly chapel services. In this particular Rutlandism that I was assigned to illustrate, Dr. Rutland would make light of his age, proclaiming that James Garfield was “in the White House” during his youth.
I don’t have to explain it, do I?
So that was the first cartoon I ever had published in The Oracle, and for a while, it was pretty cool. Unfortunately, my “freelance” gig ended after about a month (by which I mean they just kinda stopped asking me to come in) and I found myself back to square one. From that point on, I continued to apply to The Oracle at least once or twice a semester…sometimes they would politely turn down my application, sometimes they didn’t respond at all. It felt discouraging at times, but I didn’t stop. I found a few other jobs and opportunities that utilized my design skills, but I stilled pined for a job at The Oracle.
Finally, after many semesters, I received a reply from the editor-in-chief who told me to come over to the student publications office to talk about the job! (I actually sent the application in the Spring 2013 semester and I didn’t get a response until the middle of the summer, but I was still grateful.) Once I arrived on campus, came down to the office, and met the editor in chief, I was asked it I would be able to make it to orientation the next day. From that point forward, I just assumed that I got the job and went along with it.
Since my past two years on staff, I’ve served under three editor in chiefs, seen a new president assume office at ORU, and become a four time award winning cartoonist. That fact that I can now call myself an “award winning cartoonist” still blows my mind and is something I never thought would happen five odd years ago. My first year on staff, I won third place for my cartoons from the Oklahoma Collegiate Media Association, which for me was a feat in itself. This year, I didn’t take third place. I took FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD place. I placed everywhere. How did that even happen? How is that even possible? These are questions I keep asking myself, but at the end of it all I don’t think it really matters. My EIC/co-worker’s increasing confidence in my illustrative abilities has been such a blessing since I began, and the fact that I was given my own section in the paper this past year was a testament to that. They’re the real team players here.
I think what I’ll miss the most about working at The Oracle is not the Monday morning meetings when we pitched story ideas for the upcoming paper while many of us were still half awake from the weekend, or even the Spotify playlists played and the ridiculous things said and done during production nights when the increasingly late hours of the evening chipped away at our collective sanities. I think what I will miss the most is seeing my co-workers react to my work before anyone else.
The sort-of downside of working in an industry like journalism is that it can be a little discouraging to not receive an initial response for the work you’ve poured hours or days worth of labor into. Sure, you know someone likes your work when they come up to you and tell you how good of a job you did on your specific contribution to the paper – which is flattering, of course – but you never really get to see them react in real time. That moment when an article resonates with them, or that moment when they get a joke. I feel that’s easily lost in translation. That’s not to say it’s an inherently bad thing, that’s just the way it is.
But to have been able to show everyone I worked with an idea for a cartoon mere hours after I conceived it, to see them give positive feedback or just burst out laughing…that’s when I knew that my goofy little drawings connected with people and that all of those depreciators who told me that I wouldn’t be drawing in ten years and that I was wasting my time don’t really matter after all.
That’s when I knew I was doing something right.
Photo cred goes to Cassandra Van Dam