Set 3 Goals For a Great Year in Student Media

How to think big, stay realistic, and make yourself (and your team) proud during the busy time ahead

You’ve gotta start somewhere.

This time every year — -usually on or around this date — -it finally hits student journalists and faculty advisers: We have to go back to school. Newsrooms get decluttered, computers get refreshed, new equipment gets unboxed, orientations are scheduled, and hopes and dreams soar for the school year ahead.

Any of us who’ve done this before, though, has seen how those hopes and dreams can fade closer to November. And don’t even think about their depleted, ghostly presence limping into April and May. No matter how often we remind ourselves that the school is a marathon, not a sprint, we just keep charging along, shedding our best intentions along the way for the sake of survival.

While students are perhaps most vulnerable, but there’s something about this late-summer reverie that can sweep up even the most veteran advisers. I know from experience, stumbling through burnout before the first blooms of spring. A couple of years ago, I tried a new strategy: Setting three concrete goals to achieve in the year ahead.

Think of goals as a North Star to keep yourself on track, not to mention a way to hold yourself accountable.

Sure, goal-setting might seem obvious. But if you haven’t considered them before the first days and weeks of school, strategic objectives might be a lower priority than, say, making sure your Adobe Creative Cloud suite works or that you’re stocked up on SD cards. But they’re crucial. You and your team need somewhere to focus your ambitions. Think of them as a North Star to keep yourself on track, not to mention a way to hold yourself accountable.

How to settle on just three goals? A few things to consider:

1. What’s your “blue sky” scenario? If time, money and resources were no object, what would you strive to accomplish at your publication? A website overhaul? A student podcast network, with promotion and syndication to boot? Extensive training for public-records requests and investigative projects? If I were you, I’d start by daydreaming the best-case scenario — -write it down without any shame or second thoughts. This should be about visualizing good, constructive, positive action.
2. What’s realistic? Your student media outlet isn’t the only thing you’ve got going. Other classes, committees, second jobs, and outside deadlines compete with families, fitness, hobbies, and other life circumstances for your free time. If you set a goal to redesign your entire website between now and May, your likelihood of success might be lower than just redesigning your home page, or perhaps trying a few uniquely designed multimedia story packages. Think big, but think achievable.
3. What teaches or supports the most people? There’s nothing wrong with a self-interested goal. For example, one of mine this year is to bolster my understandings of Adobe Premiere and Audition, skills that I hope to eventually use in reported work of my own. But what better way to learn it than to teach it? Enlisting dozens of students in skills-based workshops will refine all of our chops, while also checking a box I’ve sought to check for a long time. Another goal I have this year is to remember to log off more often — -no email, no Slack, no social media — -for improved mental health. The world will continue, right? Even this is a great way to support others while supporting yourself. After all, if you’re a burned-out husk by February or March, you can’t be much good to anyone.
4. What would you be proudest of? None of us work as mere functionaries, punching in and punching out without heed to our relationships to the institutions we serve. As a part of those institutions, we tie our legacies to theirs (and vice versa). Consider goals that will benefit, burnish, and gratify both legacies — -something you can take pride in having not only envisioned, but also executed.
5. What boosts your stock? Another way of thinking about this is the eternal and obvious question, “What would look good on a resume?” But thinking strictly in job-market terms deemphasizes your value in the community where you are now, and where you may remain as an adviser, student, peer mentor, or other important figure. Set goals whose realizations would enhance that value whoever and wherever you are.

I’ll show my cards for the year ahead, when my three goals are 1) to develop and refine skills workshops to supplement The State Hornet’s general team meetings and instruction, 2) logging off my phone and laptop after work hours, and 3) through increased and organized outreach, doubling the size of the State Hornet alumni network that helped us realize last year’s successful 70th anniversary campaign.

Monday couldn’t come soon enough.

Stu VanAirsdale is the faculty adviser at The State Hornet, the student news organization at Sacramento State. Send him your goals, questions or ideas for Du Jour articles at stvcsus@gmail.com.