Publications sounds like a lot of fun when you read it for the first time. You might even thinkj, “Oh, I’ll just put it as my third or fourth elective choice because I know that I won’t make it in the class.” After a little while, you get your schedule and expecting that you got into that weight lifting class or what ever else you signed up for as an elective, and find your self in the Publications class. (At least that’s how it went for me.)

Your heart might race when you hear Mrs. Green say that this is a very demanding class and that it is  difficult. For the first few weeks you’re learning how to cob in Photoshop, how to make a sidebar, how to take proper pictures, how to write stories, and what your rights you have as a writer. You go home and tell your parents that you want to drop out because it seems like too much and you are worried that it will be this way all year long.

You may even talk to your counselor about the work load and a class that you think might be a better fit for you and you can breeze by. But you might regret if you drop out as the amount of learning that you will get out of this class is more than what you may learn in almost any other.

Things I’ve learned:

• Stepping out of my comfort zone by walking into a lesson and asking the teacher for a student to interview
• Talking to people that I didn’t know
• How to use Photoshop and InDesign
• Writing stories that are published in the student newspaper
• Working under pressure
• Working on the biggest group project for the entire school
• Field trips both in and out of state
• The First Amendment and how it applies to student speech

In the end, you will enjoy the yearbook experience and you will have a product that most of your peers keep for their whole life.