Going into my junior year of high school, I decided it would be a great idea to join my school’s yearbook staff. I knew that if I wanted to pursue a career in journalism, I should probably start getting familiar with writing articles, conducting interviews and taking pictures. Being on the yearbook staff for the last two years of my high school career gave me some great memories and friendships and taught me many valuable lessons that I’ll always look back on. I had the best and worst of times in yearbook. Out of all of my experiences in this class, here are a few of the essential things I learned.

1. What happens in the yearbook room stays in the yearbook room.

While you’re in class working on pages with your friends, you’ll find yourself having conversations about anything. You’ll sort through pictures of every single student at your school and have to ask “Who is this person?” or “How do you spell their last name?” about every 5 minutes. Some days, you’ll be so desperate to get your pages finished that you just make yourself a cup of ramen noodles, put in some headphones and work for hours until everything gets done. But no matter what’s going on in the yearbook room, there’s almost always candy in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet.

2. You'll never stop hearing “How many ads have you sold so far?”

As a staff member, you will learn all about the art of ad sales. You’ll find yourself visiting or calling almost every local business trying to sound as professional as you can, desperately convincing them why they should buy an ad for the yearbook. It certainly wasn’t the most fun part of the class, but sales goals have to be met.

3. It’s all fun and games until you’re two hours away from your deadline.

Regardless of how hard you work on your pages for three weeks straight, you somehow always find yourself in front of your computer at 11:30 on a Friday night making those last minute changes. It is in these moments that you begin to question whether or not everything will get turned in on time, but somehow it always does.

4.You can’t please everyone.

No matter how hard you try to make the perfect book that everyone will like, chances are someone will take one look at it and say “this is the ugliest yearbook I’ve ever seen”. You’ll probably want to pull your hair out, but just remember all of the hard work you put into it.

5. You make lasting memories.

While the class itself is fun, you’re making a book full of special memories that you’ll be able to look back on in the years to come. After working hard throughout the entire school year, it’s incredibly satisfying to look through the book at the end of it all and say that you helped make it. Putting an entire yearbook is definitely full of frustrating moments, but it’s all worth it in the end.