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| Taylor Higgins is a senior at High Point University in her home state of North Carolina. |
News elements
Who: Taylor Higgins
What: received an assistantship
When: this week
Where: University of Alaska Fairbanks
Why: Because she is graduating
News Values:
Proximity
Timeliness
Emotion
Timeliness
Emotion
Type of lede:
BY: TAYLOR HIGGINS
It was the day she’s been working toward for four years, eight years, 22 years. But now that it’s here, she’s having second thoughts.
Taylor Higgins, a senior strategic communication
and religion double major at High Point University, received a prestigious
teaching assistantship this week at the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of
Communication.
“It should be an easy decision,” Higgins said Wednesday. “I should be
celebrating, but instead, I’m experiencing something I never expected:
apprehension, and even an amount of fear.”
With graduation rapidly approaching, Higgins is feeling pressured to answer the all-too-familiar question: What are you going to do with
the rest of your life?
"Up until now, I've always had a tenacious taste for adventure, and for things big and wild," Higgins explained. "Now that the so-called 'rest of my life' has arrived, I feel my fearless nature reaching desperately to comfort and safety."
"Up until now, I've always had a tenacious taste for adventure, and for things big and wild," Higgins explained. "Now that the so-called 'rest of my life' has arrived, I feel my fearless nature reaching desperately to comfort and safety."
Higgins is undeniably a communicator. Since childhood, she
has displayed a passion for talking, storytelling and entertaining. According to
her mother, Higgins' perfectionistic nature manifested itself very early.
“Taylor never did baby-talk or babble,” Sherri Higgins said
in a phone call Thursday. “It was like she waited until she felt every little
word was perfected, and then one day, she just started talking in full sentences.”
Higgins notes that it is this attention to detail that is
both her strongest asset and her worst enemy.
“My mom has always said that I can’t see the forest through
the trees, and that I set unreasonable expectations for myself,” notes Higgins.
“But I think my devilish nit-picking is my ‘special sauce,’ and what sets me
apart.”
There was a time when Higgins’s vision of herself was not in
a newsroom or on a television set, but in a dance studio and on stage. A
competitive dancer and gymnast since age five, she competed nationally on
traveling dance teams for seven years.
Higgins found success not in her desired genre of classical
ballet, but instead in tap, lyrical and gymnastics. She attributes her achievement as a national title holder to this same determination for perfection.
"I spent hours upon hours at home, practicing my routines relentlessly, even cutting my own music," Higgins said. "I had a trampoline and gymnastic mats in my backyard that my mom would have to drag me away from every night. I always wanted to go into the next rehearsal with something perfected."
With dreams of competing in the 2008 Olympics at the threshold age of 16, Higgins' plans screeched to a halt with the discovery of a muscular disorder. At the age of 13, she underwent reparative surgery on her right leg that would prevent her from ever dancing again. Her nine-year career was suddenly over.
"Middle school is an uncomfortable time of self-discovery for anyone," Higgins adds. "I found myself beginning eighth grade on crutches with a cast leg, stripped of all my self-purpose. Outside of a dancer, I didn't know who I was."
It was ninth grade before Higgins again found an outlet for her competitive spirit. Persuaded by a friend to join the Future Business Leaders of America club at her high school, it was an accident of fate that she wound up competing in place of another student in the public speaking category at a regional competition.
"Standing on stage again as a frustrated, directionless freshman, they called my name as first place winner, and I felt my ambitious little spirit awaken from her hibernation," Higgins recounted. "I had a taste of fulfillment and hunger again, and I knew I wanted more."
Higgins went on to serve as an officer for the remainder of her time in high school, and competed meticulously in the categories of public and impromptu speaking. Regularly a regional champion, she also became a North Carolina state champion, and competed at FBLA National Championship as a state representative her senior year.
Sitting in the second-floor newsroom in the Qubein School of Communication, gazing down at the purple news desk that dominates the production studio, Higgins recognizes this familiar feeling that has crept into her again as uncertainty. With her future hanging in the balance, she is again the directionless 13-year-old, leaning on her crutches in the midst of a loud, chaotic Archdale-Trinity Middle School.
This is her fear. This is unfamiliarity. This is what it feels like to not control the details.
On May 3, Higgins will walk proudly across the stage in front of Roberts Hall, signifying to the world that she has arrived at 'the rest of her life.' Whether that means attending UAF or not, she is assured of her future.
"I abide by the personal maxim to go the extra mile, because it's never crowded. I have been here before and come out resilient," Higgins said, sounding resolved. "This time though, I am armed with a degree and with the confidence that I am a contender."
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| Higgins, age 9, before a dance competition. |
"I spent hours upon hours at home, practicing my routines relentlessly, even cutting my own music," Higgins said. "I had a trampoline and gymnastic mats in my backyard that my mom would have to drag me away from every night. I always wanted to go into the next rehearsal with something perfected."
With dreams of competing in the 2008 Olympics at the threshold age of 16, Higgins' plans screeched to a halt with the discovery of a muscular disorder. At the age of 13, she underwent reparative surgery on her right leg that would prevent her from ever dancing again. Her nine-year career was suddenly over.
"Middle school is an uncomfortable time of self-discovery for anyone," Higgins adds. "I found myself beginning eighth grade on crutches with a cast leg, stripped of all my self-purpose. Outside of a dancer, I didn't know who I was."
It was ninth grade before Higgins again found an outlet for her competitive spirit. Persuaded by a friend to join the Future Business Leaders of America club at her high school, it was an accident of fate that she wound up competing in place of another student in the public speaking category at a regional competition.
"Standing on stage again as a frustrated, directionless freshman, they called my name as first place winner, and I felt my ambitious little spirit awaken from her hibernation," Higgins recounted. "I had a taste of fulfillment and hunger again, and I knew I wanted more."
Higgins went on to serve as an officer for the remainder of her time in high school, and competed meticulously in the categories of public and impromptu speaking. Regularly a regional champion, she also became a North Carolina state champion, and competed at FBLA National Championship as a state representative her senior year.
Sitting in the second-floor newsroom in the Qubein School of Communication, gazing down at the purple news desk that dominates the production studio, Higgins recognizes this familiar feeling that has crept into her again as uncertainty. With her future hanging in the balance, she is again the directionless 13-year-old, leaning on her crutches in the midst of a loud, chaotic Archdale-Trinity Middle School.
This is her fear. This is unfamiliarity. This is what it feels like to not control the details.
On May 3, Higgins will walk proudly across the stage in front of Roberts Hall, signifying to the world that she has arrived at 'the rest of her life.' Whether that means attending UAF or not, she is assured of her future.
"I abide by the personal maxim to go the extra mile, because it's never crowded. I have been here before and come out resilient," Higgins said, sounding resolved. "This time though, I am armed with a degree and with the confidence that I am a contender."
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