The hardest part about my role in Élan is figuring out the right things to say and the right ways to portray Élan on both our social media and our website. As someone who did not use social media very often when I was assigned the role of being a digital media editor, stepping into the social media part of my role was more difficult. I wasn’t allowed to slack off or hope someone else could do my job, because as a part of Élan overall, the digital media team is how the world sees us as a magazine, especially as a student ran and published magazine, which makes the job even more important and special. When Élan has events and those who attend want to find out more about us, they are either directed to the website or our social media. I felt a lot of pressure at first, sometimes I still do when we have several events going on in such a short amount of time. When it was time for me to take over as the junior digital media editor in the second semester of the last school year, that is when I really got more confident in my role and what I was doing. I took more responsibility for what I had to do, and I did it with pride in the fact that I was helping spread what Élan meant to me and the rest of the staff.
My triumph in my role came from learning how to do my job as a digital media editor and knowing I was doing the job right. Taking on the digital media editor role, for me, was a lot of change, but looking at how much I have grown since I have gotten my role and actually stepped into my job as something I wanted to do, I am so thankful for it and I wouldn't want to trade my position with anyone else. When I took on the job, I kept a lot to myself and I was not very good at communicating with others, but in the same time period that I took over the digital media team as a junior and took responsibility for what I was doing, I also learned to communicate better, have more control with what I wanted instead of standing back and having others tell me what to do. Learning to do that in my experience as an Élan member is very important because without this job, I wouldn’t have learned that, and it was something essential for me to know so I could grow as a person.
On our social media and website, the digital media team constantly will update when submissions are for all of our book editions, for both art and writing, as well as update for the events we will be doing in future months. Élan has at least two submissions period, one in the Fall, for the Online Fall Edition, and the second in Spring, for the Online Spring Edition. Near the end of the year the team chooses work from both books, as well as new submissions to be in our print book. All three books are highlighted on our social media and our website, along with our past books. Even if you are someone who submits, but does not get a piece into the actual books, it is still special to read through the books and see the beautiful art or pieces of writing others your age can create.
- Catriona Keel, Senior Web Editor