I joined The Daily Iowan TV as a third-year college student, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

DITV gave me a place on campus to call home, and friends that I’d been in search of for a long time.

After graduating from high school in the small town of Guttenberg, Iowa, the size of the University of Iowa scared me. Although I grew up a Hawkeye, I decided to attend Coe College due to what I perceived to be a more accessible size.

I was wrong. I never felt like I truly fit in anywhere at Coe. Part of that was my fault — I struggled to make friends and I struggled with my self-confidence. And, as a first-generation only child college student, I didn’t feel like I had any resources to help. At the end of my first year, I decided to start over and transfer to where my heart lay initially — the UI.

I stayed away from the DI at first. I was vaguely interested, but I entered Iowa as a communications major with no clear goals or aspirations. I started working at CAMBUS — a job that’s been instrumental in my ability to afford college. It’s also an isolating affair. Not surprisingly, there are few opportunities to interact with co-workers when driving a bus.

I lived at Mayflower. Famously, Mayflower has a low student retention rate due to, you guessed it, how isolated it is from the rest of the campus. Needless to say, I didn’t exactly set myself up for success. Again.

At the end of my sophomore year, I needed a change. So, I scheduled a meeting with a career coach at the Pomerantz Center. After what felt more like a psych evaluation than a career conversation, we decided that I was going to move to the journalism major and give that a chance. At the time, it felt like this was my last chance to find a community for me. That was the second-best decision I’ve ever made.

Before my junior year officially started, I decided to take the jump and applied to the DI. At the time, my self-confidence was at an all-time low, and my anxiety was at an all-time high, but I was hopeful. Since that first day in the DITV studio, the UI has felt like home.

I’ve grown so much these past two years. Not only have I found a passion for storytelling, but I’ve developed self-confidence I’ve never had before. When I started at DITV, calling the Iowa City Landfill and Recycling Center for a story filled me with anxiety. I looked down at my phone for what felt like an eternity before tapping the green call button, all to simply ask for a quick interview.

Last summer, I had a one-on-one interview with Kate Martin, which I had to set up by chasing down the Las Vegas Aces media relations director around Target Center the day of a WNBA game.  The biggest thing I found, however, was a group of phenomenal people who I now get to call my friends.

I’m not going to take the time to shout out all the people who’ve impacted me these past two years. It would simply take too much time. So many people at DITV have been good friends to me, and have helped me grow as a reporter and a leader.

But I do have to thank my DITV sports staff. Since I took over as DITV sports director, they’ve been nothing but hard-workng, creative, and supportive. We started a brand new show, DITV Sports: In the Zone. We covered a little bit of everything, from women’s basketball to golf, telling impactful stories along the way. However, those aren’t the most important things they’ve done for me.

They turned editing bay G, commonly know as “the sports bay,” into a place where people feel welcome to come, hang out, and have fun. People can open custom DITV trading cards or they can get advice on a story they’re working on.

The DITV Sports team created the community I’d been searching for for two years. And I’ll always love them for that.