by Nicoline Hansen
This week I sat down with our other editor, Ayla McDonald. She is currently studying Liberal Arts and Sciences but is planning on transferring into the Journalism program at the U of I. When asked about her favorite part of Parkland College, McDonald answered without a doubt, “Working for the Prospectus for sure”. She feels as if the Prospectus gives her an opportunity to have a voice while being a voice for other people at the same time. When our editor is not studying or attending classes, she enjoys singing and gardening. Furthermore, she has big plans for her future. In just five years, she hopes to have graduated, written at least one book and will be working towards a career in journalism. Ayla hopes that this future career will help her land a job for National Geographics one day.
The editor also has a deep passion for traveling. Ayla is planning a gap year to work on an organic farm in Ireland before transferring to the U of I. While traveling, she wants to begin her own travel journalism project. When finding out about Ayla’s passion for traveling, I decided to ask her about her favorite travel destinations. “That’s a really hard one. There are so many places in the world that I would like to go,” she states. She decided on Australia, where she once lived for three months, as one of the favorite places that she has been. “It was very beautiful, and the people were so nice” McDonald adds. Her future travel plans include seeing the rest of Europe as well as going to Africa. However, Ireland has been one of Ayla’s dream travel destinations for a while, due to her love for Irish music. Our editor’s interest in Irish music has also made her want to learn Gaelic, “I know it’s a dying language, but I feel like learning Gaelic would enable me to be a better performer. It would also offer an entirely new level of insight into the culture of the Irish people,” she says.
After an interesting conversation about travel, I directed the conversation back to Parkland, and more specifically, the Prospectus. Ayla’s first semester with the Prospectus was during the Fall of 2018; she worked as a reporter. Ayla did not need to question whether to take the position as the new editor this semester. Her interest in the position stems from her interest in both editing and writing. Additionally, she saw the position as a great opportunity as she is pursuing a career in journalism.
According to McDonald, if she could do a story on any person in the world, she would choose to do a story on Tara Westover, an academic who had no education growing up. “I would love to pick her brain and find out if she experienced any of the same struggles that I’m going through on a more personal level, and what she thinks America could be doing differently for home educated students,” she adds.
Ayla considers the last Prospectus meeting of the Fall 2018 semester to be her favorite memory with the newspaper. She tells me that the staff shuffled through several old copies of the Prospectus from many different decades. “It was a really neat experience, just being able to look at what has happened at the college, what has happened in our community and what has happened in our nation through the eyes of other Parkland students who went here before me,” McDonald says. When it comes to future Prospectus team members, Ayla advises curious students to apply, as working for the newspaper is a great hands-on experience. “The Prospectus offers its staff an opportunity to create incredible experiences for themselves and be able to share those experiences with the community,” McDonald says. “It’s also a great way to make friends.”
