As published, The Ohio State Lantern, on Thursday 3 Aug 2000, Page 4, Column.

A letter of advice for incoming freshmen

An open letter to the hordes of orientation students who have swamped the OSU campus in recent weeks.

Dear freshmen-to-be:

Four years ago, I was in your position. I was a scared freshman, ready to embark on the magical four-year (or five-year) journey known as Ohio State. I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to do after I graduated; I wanted to be a sportscaster or a sportswriter. I've always been a big sports fan, and I figured that the old adage "find something you love doing and you'll never work a day in your life" was one to live by.

In the middle of my freshman year I saw the starting salary numbers for journalism graduates (hint: not in the same tax bracket as Les Wexner) and decided that journalism wasn't for me after all.

I switched my major to business, because everyone knows that you can get rich by majoring in business, right?

I spent two long years struggling through a sequence of classes that I didn't want to take. I studied international business, accounting, calculus and marketing. I even spent a summer working in an accounting firm. And I hated every minute of it.

Last fall, I came back to the School of Journalism and quickly remembered what it was like to enjoy going to class. One of my professors told his students that he had done something similar.

He worked in the business world after he graduated, he held an MBA, and he was married with two small children. One day, he decided that he was sick of his job, so he quit and became a newspaper columnist and TV sportscaster.

It's not as easy as it sounds, especially when one considers that he did not major in journalism during his time at Ohio State. With no formal training, he threw himself headfirst into the broadcasting and writing business.

After a few years which one could charitably describe as "difficult" he is now a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, a successful sportscaster, and a contributor to ESPN the Magazine and Nickelodeon Magazine, among other things.

The lessons that I took from his story were: A) You should do what you have a passion for, and B) If you work your rear end off, you can accomplish a whole lot, and C) My professor is one brave guy and has a very understanding wife, and D) It would have been a whole lot easier on him and his family if he had started his adult life by following his heart and doing what he wanted to do, instead of banging his head against the wall for a decade.

Does this mean that the freshman enrollment in the College of Business should plummet to zero this fall? Should the walls of the Journalism Building bulge with the sudden influx of 5,000 new students, all eager to become sportswriters? Of course not.

I have a friend that has always wanted to be a high school math teacher. He knows that he is destined for an annual salary roughly equivalent to what Tiger Woods makes for playing one hole of golf. He doesn't care because he loves what he's doing. He graduated with a math degree in Spring Quarter and is now enrolled at the College of Education.

Another friend has always been fascinated by cars. He graduated with his degree in mechanical engineering and is now working for a branch of General Motors. And yet another friend was interested in carpentry and the staging of plays. He's a couple of quarters away from his theater degree and loves his life as a stagehand at concerts, plays, and other events.

Do they work their butts off? You bet. But they love it.

What's the lesson? Do what you want to do. Don't worry about what your paycheck is going to look like five years from now. Don't do something just because it's what your parents want you to do. Don't do something just because it will let you take nice vacations for two weeks every year.

I get paid to watch baseball, football and hockey games and talk about them. I get paid to talk to John Cooper, Tim Couch, Brian McBride and Doug MacLean. I'm on vacation every time I go to work.

Thomas Orr is a senior journalism major and the Lantern sports editor. He promises that he will be back to his snide, sneering, sports-centered columns by the end of next week. He just wanted a break from dogging the WNBA for a while.

Copyright 2000 The Ohio State Lantern