Sarah Monoson
writer / editor / designer
I am an undergraduate student studying journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, set to graduate in May 2025.
When I was 10 years old, I had my life mapped out ahead of me. I didn’t know it at the time. Then, I was just playing The Sims 3, a video game that simulates life from birth to death.
I still had my baby teeth and I was responsible for a virtual being that was, effectively, me. A version of me who was a young adult in a new town in need of a job.
With the straightforwardness of an elementary school-mind, I chose to be a journalist.
That had never been my answer when my parents or teachers or friends asked me what I wanted to do with my life. And yet, I knew something at 10 years old that I didn’t rediscover until I won my state’s High School Journalist of the Year award at 17.
I knew that journalism was a force for good (I mean, it’s Superman’s day job). I knew that I loved to write and edit. And, most importantly, I knew I could do it well.
I’ve spent most of my life doubting myself. Being a journalist has forced me to confront those fears and overcome them, from talking to strangers to leading newsrooms of my peers.
When I was 10, being a reporter and a copy editor and a managing editor were not my ambitions yet — I didn’t even know what two of those things were until much later.
I didn’t know that my high school paper would change my life, or that The Daily Tar Heel would change my life again and again.
I knew a much simpler truth: that when I would become a young adult in a new town in need of a job, I’d want to be a journalist.
Experience
- Print Managing Editor at The Daily Tar Heel
- Oversee the weekly print paper, from content selection to page design to writing headlines.
- Copy Chief at Coulture magazine
- Conduct final copy read on every story and lead a team of a dozen staffers and two associates.
- Summer Managing Editor at The DTH
- Oversaw daily online production of articles, editing every piece
- Copy Chief at The DTH
- Copy edited and fact checked stories, led team of 19 staffers and three assistants, placed stories in print and wrote headlines
Skills
- Copyediting & AP style
- Headline writing
- Feature, news writing
- Adobe Creative Suite
