As the year ends, many seniors, including myself, are moving on to new things, and with this transition comes new opportunities for the younger grades as they move up the ranks at Saint Stephen’s. 

Maybe you wanted to take a class last year but there weren’t any open spots? Maybe you wanted to join a club but it was too late?  Maybe you’re looking for something new?

Now there’s nothing but open space, a blank slate for 2020-21. Wanted to be a captain of a sports team? Now’s your chance to start thinking about how you can make that happen. Wanted to be a part of The Gauntlet staff, or The View staff, or the Yearbook crew?  Now’s the time to line that up.  

No matter what you’re interested in, The Gauntlet has a position to suit your skills and interests. To find out what position might be right for you, read this article.  It’s the same one I read last year before I joined.  

Finding a position to take on in The Gauntlet was easy. I knew I wasn’t the strongest writer and that I didn’t want the stress of having to put out an amazing article every week. What I did know however, was that as a teenager, I knew how to work social media.  

I’ve got the experience and the passion for it, so I convinced the team, through hard work and commitment, to let me take over the social media manager position. 

Throughout the year I would learn how to write newsworthy, catchy captions, market posts to gain readership, and work efficiently with a large team.  

A typical day of a social media manager in The Gauntlet went like this: Wait for a Gauntlet staffer to put out work; find the best imagery or video from the article; read or watch the piece to be able to formulate a caption; and finally get the post proofed by the editorial staff.  On top of posting pieces, you have to garner as much public support (readership) for the writers as you can.  

The main goal of the social media manager was to gain readership, so that the writers on the staff felt like you were getting their work out there.  

That’s not all the social media manager does though.

When you aren’t posting, you are analyzing reader habits, searching through old content for throwback pieces, coming up with ideas to increase the exposure of the newspaper overall. Throughout the year, we made it a goal to post quality posts to social media every day to maximize our followers and earn badges from SNO (a digital journalism platform that ranks high school newspapers). 

The journalism program is something I wish I had joined long before my senior year. Not only do you get to be a “voice” for your school, but you also get to experience multiple aspects of the journalism field.  

My experience on The Gauntlet has helped solidify my choice of becoming a social media manager one day, and it even influenced me to change my college major from communications to public relations, so that I can delve even more into the skills I learned this past year. 

If you’re on the fence about taking journalism or you might not want to take it because you don’t want to write articles, I encourage you to join anyways. There are so many other aspects to creating a good newspaper other than being a staff writer. 

And who knows, it might even help you decide what you want to do when you leave Saint Stephen’s.