I’ve only done one thing consistently for my entire time at Northwestern: volunteer with Medill Media Teens.

At Media Teens, Medill undergrads meet with Chicago high school students every Saturday in the downtown newsroom. We work together to learn journalism skills like interviewing, writing, photography and video.

I found out about the program at the Medill activities fair freshman year, and was immediately moved by what the girl at the booth told me – that Media Teens was a way to use our journalism education without getting competitive. As anyone who knows me can tell you, I’m not that competitive. I don’t even like board games. So this idea appealed to me.

The first few weeks of Media Teens were tough. I was paired with two teens, Tashjorie and Josh, who turned out to be a couple. That made it even easier for them to shut me out when they didn’t want to do the day’s activity (usually going out on the street and interviewing people in the cold of a Chicago fall). Being a fall quarter freshman, I felt like I barely knew anything myself, and had no idea how to get them to focus.

As the weeks went by, things improved. I learned that while I didn’t necessarily have a natural way with the teens, I did have a knack for gentle nagging. When I told Tashjorie to interview someone over and over again for half an hour, she usually did it – and always felt more confident after. She responded to my constant reminders that I believed in her and knew she could do the work. We began to develop a relationship that lasted for the two years she was in the program.

Once she graduated, I worked with a new group of teens for my junior and senior year. The constancy of Media Teens was like an oasis in the ever-shifting sands of college life. Classes, papers and exams came and went. My friendships had ups and downs. I moved from a dorm to an apartment and then to a different apartment. I started dating my boyfriend. I worried about what the future would bring. But every quarter, Saturday mornings brought a train ride downtown and three hours spent with my teens, working hard to edit a video interview or take a really beautiful photo.

It turned out to be exactly what that girl proposed at the activities fair table four years ago. While college life frequently indulged my desire to think constantly about myself, Media Teens was about focusing on somebody else. It was about sharing my love of journalism instead of competing with other journalists. It let me get outside the Evanston bubble for a little while each week, and not just physically.

I’ve had a lot of great experiences at Northwestern, and have no doubt I made the right decision coming here. But I tend to think of my time here in blocks: The two years I lived in CRC; the year I spent editing for NBN; the few weeks when my anxiety got particularly bad; the six months when I was interning downtown. Media Teens is a common thread through all the blocks, tying them all back to what’s really important: Developing relationships, sharing what you love, and sticking with what works. On a Friday at the beginning of almost every quarter, I would end up mentioning that I had Media Teens the next day, and one of my friends would always respond with surprise: “You’re still doing that?” The question always surprised me, because I never thought about quitting.