While watching movies or reading books, one’s perception of the “high school experience” is easily misconstrued and romanticized. Spending much of my childhood waiting for multiple love interests fighting over me, a plethora of school events and dances, and decorating my locker with the cringey chevron print that had a chokehold on middle schoolers in 2016 may or may not have set me up for an emotional failure these past few years. I never would have imagined myself living the life I have throughout high school- for multiple reasons.

First, the pandemic has had an enormous impact on three of my four years of high school. My sophomore year was cut short due to the closing of Apex High which was initiated in the spring of 2020, where no one had any idea what to do with ourselves and cabin fever settled over the country. The entirety of my junior year was spent sitting at my desk at home, occasionally getting up to eat lunch and desperately trying to keep myself awake during zoom meetings. My senior year started with a carefully calculated marching band camp during the summer, which was the most interaction I’ve had with anyone in over a year.

Many of my first impressions of the actual school year had been full of masks, vaccines, questionable social distancing and a messed up schedule. I had to overcome some hurdles with my counselor in order to ensure I would be able to take the classes I needed to graduate by the end of this year, and on top of that, my schedule was filled with randomized classes I hadn’t requested. Health Science I, Child Development, and Newspaper I were all classes I hadn’t shown interest in before- or even knew had existed. Despite not quite knowing what to expect from these classes, I decided to stick with them and I think that has truly been for the better.

When I started in Newspaper with Mrs. Doud, I didn’t even realize that our school had a newspaper. I had never heard of The Legacy before, and seeing how closely it worked with CougarTV was a shocker. It was definitely strange to see how much time and effort was dedicated to a project that, to many students like myself, flies under the radar and is deeply underappreciated. We spent a lot of time at the beginning of the semester building the foundations to write a good article, as well as the different laws and obligations that we must abide by. After that, we were sent on our own.

We had the opportunity to write articles about anything and everything Apex. When deciding what topics we should write about during our first issue, my class decided that someone should write an article about the Apex Marching Band; being involved in marching band, I volunteered. My first ever article was certainly a learning curve, especially by having to put all of the foundational aspects of an article, as well as having to conduct interviews despite the awkwardness. Despite that, I persevered, and I remember feeling so excited about being able to write and publish an article with my name on it.

From that point on, conducting interviews, collecting research, and writing articles got easier with each issue; having the opportunity to work with so many different people helped me learn even more about how other people work through the process and gave me inspiration on how to continue myself. As time passed, I grew closer with not only the people in Newspaper, but also CougarTV. During class, I was able to observe how much time, planning and dedication went into their weekly episodes, and I grew to appreciate all of the intricacies that many may not acknowledge.

Overally, my experience in Newspaper has been very positive and I’m so glad I was able to learn more about all of the behind the scenes of our school’s media production. I’m grateful for the little family our classes have built together, and send my best wishes to anyone who are involved or planning to be involved in Newspaper in the future.