By Nicholas Proch

Over the next several editions of this stellar publication, we’re going to have our editors profile themselves (not in the discrimination sense of the word) to let the reader get to know our staff. We’re going to share with you our path to the positions we’re in. Since everyone in the office already thinks I’m crazy, I’ll take my chances and do the first one. Enjoy getting to know us.

There’s a lot that someone can tell you from their academic achievements and awards they have won, but unfortunately I don’t have any of those things to share. My biggest scholarly accomplishment was the fact that I was accepted into a university. I applied to Northeastern, UConn, Emerson, the University of Arizona, UMass and, of course, CCSU. Wouldn’t you know it, I only got accepted at this school. There was nothing I wanted to do more than go to school in a city like Boston, but realistically it was just a pipe dream. No one could get in with a sub-3.0 GPA and I wasn’t about to break the mold.

Luckily for me I was, and still am, a great test taker (I’ll probably jinx myself now that I’ve put that into print). My scores on the SATs were high. They were high enough that I think they might have single-handedly gotten me an acceptance into higher education. I came into school like anyone else who didn’t really care about being here, as a business major (I’m not downing the business world, I just think that too many people settle on it). The time I spent in that program (three semesters) went by about as fast as the Nuremberg trials (too cliché?). Anyways, I was puttering back and forth between finance and management with no real direction. My downfall was math and has always been math. It’s not that I’m not good at math, in fact I’m a great number cruncher and probably could be an accountant with minimal training, it’s the pain in the ass unneeded levels of calculus and algebra that I couldn’t concentrate for. Who is ever going to need to know half of the things that they teach you in these courses?

My stepdad is a very successful business man. With the success he’s had, you would think that he went to a prestigious school of some caliber, but he didn’t. His parents died when he was very young and he had to make a living for himself from his late teens. The one thing that he said helped him was always the fact that he could talk in front of a group of people. He’s a great communicator. He can always convey his message to his audience no matter what the topic. Well, during this period of stalemate in my life between wanting to be creative and just get a degree, I decided to take the public speaking course at this school. It’s a communication course that I recommend to everyone. I was astounded by the fact that I had learned more about how to learn and relate with others in one class than in three semesters of business classes.

This one class set a spark. By the end of that semester I was already enrolled in the Communication department program. My emphasis was broadcast journalism and I loved it. I particularly excelled in the media classes. Since I was about seven years old holding a camera was an easy thing for me to master. I have steady hands and a knack for seeing a beautiful image, a lethal combination. For another 3 semesters I, frankly, kicked ass. Job offers were coming in left and right. Besides many freelance projects, I was working for the department of marketing and communication for the university. Basically, any external or internal video PR that was produced by this campus passed through my desk. It payed well and for a short period of time was very fulfilling. The problem with short periods of time is that they usually end quickly, otherwise they would be long periods of time.

I stayed working for this department for about two semesters at least. During this time I had begun to take journalism courses. Figuring this would be my minor, it never occurred to me that I might fall in love with writing. It didn’t take too long before I was looking forward to going to anything on my schedule that started with JRN. I also started to write for the Central Recorder. Of course, I started the way that most do…I took a movie review. It’s embarrassing to admit that my review of Hot Tub Time Machine would be my first published print work of any kind (for those who are keeping track of these types of things, I hated the film). During this time I became quite friendly with Mike Walsh, the soon-to-be editor-in-chief at the time. Even though my writing was elementary at best, he encouraged me to keep writing for him. Taking entertainment reviews and writing opinion articles was my strong point (and still is).

When Mike actually took over this past fall, I was a fixed commodity in the office. Not only did I write, but I really wanted a larger role. After my ‘tryout,’ I became the opinion editor of this paper. Meanwhile, while all of this was going on, I was basically burning every bridge that I could. The freelance work stopped coming in. I walked away from my awesome set up working for the school and pretty much can’t set foot into a lab on the third floor of Vance Academic ever again (while writing this, I’ve realized how many times I’ve changed my path completely — If you’ve made it this far into this article you should realize that I’m completely crazy). With all that happened in the past two semesters, I can finally say that I am much happier than I have ever been. I stayed on as a Communication major, but switched to the mass media emphasis. Upon telling Mike that I wanted a bigger role at the paper, he was happy to tell me that I would be his managing editor this semester (we decided this at Cheesecake Factory, in case you were wondering…you should go there some time…it’s great).

With all of the changes I’ve made in my academic path, I basically can’t graduate for another twelve years. While that’s not true, it has extended my stay by at least an extra semester. I was supposed to graduate this spring, but don’t have the credits in the right places to do so. It looks like Mike might graduate (finally) this spring so there is a possibility that I might be in his position next year. If that happens I would work to continue to keep our paper strong. It’s a challenge that I look forward to. It’s really been a blast (and kind of shocking to look at how undecided about things I’ve been) to write this. Besides being an editor I am triathlete, musician and I love a good beer. I have the best girlfriend in the world (sorry if you’re reading this and you think you have the best girlfriend, you’re wrong), great parents, really awesome friends and a guinea pig named Pooter. I’d like to thank you if you’ve read this far, it’s someone like you who makes writing worth it. My name is Nicholas Proch and I am the managing editor of this publication.