Finding successes in a difficult time

Tasha Skinner: aspiring investigative journalist

As she sits on the side of her bed, Tasha begins to mentally prepare herself for the busy day ahead.

She completes her daily morning routine by brushing her teeth and washing her face. Tasha heads to the kitchen where she makes her daily smoothy since she seldom eats breakfast.

She spends a majority of day attending virtual classes on Zoom due to the pandemic, but Tasha also makes time to partake in self-care regimens, which is her way of relieving stress during COVID-19.

Tasha Skinner was born and raised in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.  During her free time, she loves to do her natural hair, hang out with her friends, listen to music and sleep.

Tasha truly loves that Maryland is considered to be the crab state.

“I love seafood and the overall city life scenery here. I get to hop on a bus or train and go wherever, whenever. I like the fact that I can do that,” she said.

Throughout the pandemic, Tasha has enjoyed listening to music, partaking in self-care routines, playing computer games, enjoying nature, face-timing friends and working out.

Tasha feels as though being a senior in college adds to the stress of COVID-19.

“Honestly yes because I doubled up on classes, had so much work to do and worked an internship, so being a senior played a big part in my stress of COVID-19.”

Taking virtual classes via Zoom has been a huge struggle for many students simply because it doesn’t exactly equate to the face-to-face learning that everyone is used to.

Tasha considers online learning to be her biggest struggle throughout the semester. 

“The fact that everything was online was my biggest struggle because I got frequent headaches from starring at my computer for so long. It’s hard to complete work when you’ve got a headache from being on your laptop all day. Not to mention the workload was twice as much as before, so that was another struggle, I wasn’t used to that much work.”

During such a difficult semester, Tasha did notice that she has had success.  It wasn’t completely filled with struggles.

“Despite this being my hardest semester, I managed to pass all of my classes and stay on top of everything to graduate on time in the spring. I couldn’t be happier about that.”

“Don’t wait until the last minute to do things, develop a schedule and complete your work as it goes so it’ll be easier on you. Build your resume as you first approach college so you won’t have to worry about doing extra stuff like an internship for your last year,” Skinner said regarding advice she would give to fellow college students.

Many college students would ask for a redo of this semester if they were ever given the chance. Having a plan is key because each decision must be well thought out.  Course loads, procrastination and more can impact successes and struggles.

“First, I wouldn’t have doubled up. I should have just gone to summer school to eliminate some stress and secondly I wouldn’t have procrastinated as much as I did and I would have applied myself more,” Tasha said.

Going into the spring semester, Tasha plans on implementing better time management.  The lack of time management adds unnecessary stress.  Poor time management causes rushed, missed and or late assignments, she said.

When asked why she chose to attend Claflin University, Tasha said, “I was referred to Claflin by a family friend and I chose it because it was out of my comfort zone, I wanted to be in a new area with new things and meet new people. I didn’t want to go to college with the same people I went to high school with. I wanted to be different.”

After receiving a degree in mass communications, Tasha hopes to become an investigative journalist because that is what she’s the most passionate about. “I love interviewing and conducting stories, so I hope to be able to apply that in the real world soon.”

As for now, Tasha wants to enhance her journalistic writing and interviewing skills.

In the future she aspires to make a difference in the world of journalism, “My long-term goals are to make a difference within the perception of black journalists. Show them what we’re capable of.”