BRIT T ALLEN
Mills may not have a traditional journalism
school, but alums have used their liberal arts degrees and time on the student paper to forge
meaningful careers. By Rachel Leibrock, MFA ’04
The Write Stuff
Before Heidi Wachter ’01 attended Mills College, she’d never considered becoming a journalist. But when a friend approached her to join the student newspaper (now known as The Campanil ), she decided it was worth exploring. “I’d never imagined myself as a journalist,” says Wachter, even though she’d worked on her high school student publication and had also interned at a local newspaper. “But I wanted to learn more things about writing, and what I discovered is that journalism is exactly that.” At Mills, Wachter reported on various campus issues, working alongside what she describes as a “skeleton crew” of diverse women. As a women’s studies major and a 27-year-old returning student, she appreciated that many of her peers were also “resumers.” “At the time, I had classmates who were in their 40s and 50s,” Wachter recalls. “I had already worked a job and gone to college for two years, and then dropped out to work a lot of random jobs in advertising and marketing.”
14
M I L L S Q U A R T E R LY
