Imparting my wisdom

Early this morning (much too early), I had the pleasure of making my first-ever trip to South Dakota State University. It wasn't too impressive, as far as public universities go. On the whole, I thought the buildings looked outdated and kind of run-down (no offense to any Jackrabbit graduates out there reading my blog). But it is much, much smaller than say, the University of Iowa, or even University of Northern Iowa.

But my purpose in going to Brookings wasn't to take a tour of the SDSU campus – I was asked to talk to a class about the joys of journalism. But, given that it was a 9 a.m. class, and that their semester ends in about a week, there was little joy to be found on the faces of the bleary-eyed students staring vacantly at me while I explained what I do every day.

It struck me that it's probably what I looked like about five years ago, when some young 20-somethings who work at Meredith came in to talk to one of my classes about the joys of working for Wood Magazine. While they were talking, all I remember thinking was, "Oh my God, I can't believe this is what I have to look forward to." Their jobs sounded so mind-numbingly dull, I was depressed for several days afterward.

So I guess I'll consider it a good sign that none of the students this morning were staring at me with fear and/or horror in their eyes as I talked about laying out pages, working on deadline, writing headlines and catching people's stupid mistakes. It was more like dazed indifference. I have new respect for all my college professors.