{"id":5742,"date":"2025-09-20T20:40:56","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T00:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/?p=5742"},"modified":"2025-09-20T20:40:56","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T00:40:56","slug":"sana-finding-a-home-within-student-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/2025\/09\/20\/sana-finding-a-home-within-student-journalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Sana: Finding a home within student journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Sana Muneer<\/span><\/p>\n

When I graduated high school, I was devastated.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I was extremely excited \u2014 I was committed to one of my top schools, would be moving to my dream city in a few months, and would finally begin making an impact on a community bigger than my small, midwest hometown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, beyond the excitement, there was something tugging at my heart. I couldn\u2019t believe that I would be moving over a thousand miles away from my family and friends \u2014 and my pride and joy: my high school newspaper (as embarrassing as it is).<\/span><\/p>\n

I served as co-editor-in-chief of The Independent, my high school\u2019s newspaper, during my junior and senior years of high school. While the role came with its hardships and stressors, it was the highlight of my high school experience, and one of the things I am still most proud of. Beyond my role in the paper\u2019s performance itself, I worked alongside my best friends \u2014 which was the real reason I didn\u2019t want to leave.<\/span><\/p>\n

I fondly remember ordering bagels for our entire newspaper staff before our 7 a.m. morning meetings, traveling to St. Louis for the JEA\/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention and crying at my last ever editor meeting after reading a profile written about my time as EIC.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How could The Daily Free Press, BU\u2019s independent student newspaper, compare to The Independent, something I spent my entire high school experience contributing to and building up?<\/span><\/p>\n

Safe to say, I was skeptical.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, in September 2023 I made the move to Boston, leaving behind my hometown friends and family and my beloved cat, Coco.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>I remember the moment I walked into my first Features pitch meeting at The Daily Free Press office \u2014 a cramped but beloved newsroom tucked under Insomnia Cookies \u2014 and seeing the walls covered in old front pages and wholesome digital camera photos. The cozy office hummed with the sounds of clicking keyboards, conversations and laughter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It felt familiar \u2014 but I was still hesitant. At the FreeP, I was just another new writer, surrounded by students who had already made names for themselves in the newsroom. I had to start over.<\/span><\/p>\n

That day, I pitched my first story, a review of one of my favorite indie bands, boygenius. Reviews were a piece of cake, but when I saw my first byline on the website, I felt a rush. I was even more thrilled when my editor told me it would be put in the semester\u2019s first print edition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One story turned into another, then another, and before I knew it, I was spending more time in the office than in my dorm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t an immediate transition, but at some point, I stopped comparing The Daily Free Press to The Independent. The two weren\u2019t in competition. They were just different chapters of the same story\u2014 the story of how I fell in love with reporting, storytelling and the messy, exhilarating world of student journalism.<\/span><\/p>\n

And in fact, I did find a community \u2014 among the editors who pushed me to work harder, the associates who became my best friends, through the unspoken bond between caffeine-fueled editors running on sheer determination, and in the late nights in that beloved office \u2014 and it reminded me why I fell in love with journalism in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, as Managing Co-Editor of The Daily Free Press, I realize that leaving The Independent wasn\u2019t an ending. It was just the beginning.<\/span><\/p>\n



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By: Sana Muneer When I graduated high school, I was devastated.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I was extremely excited \u2014 I was committed to one of my top schools, would be moving to my dream city in a few months, and would finally begin making an impact on a community bigger than my small, midwest … Continue reading Sana: Finding a home within student journalism<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[44641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5742"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5743,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5742\/revisions\/5743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/comblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}