This is a new series started to highlight the work of exceptional students in student media. 

Channing Wang is a senior at Duncan College. He comes from Wells, Maine, and is a first generation, low-income college student. He was nominated by Kelley Lash for his exceptional work not only for the Thresher, but also for always lending a helping hand wherever needed. 

How long have you been working with Student Media? What was your experience level before coming to Rice?

“I’ve been working with Student Media since my freshman fall semester at Rice. I started as a Thresher photographer and then became Photo Editor in my sophomore year. My experience level with photography was about 1-2 years before coming to Rice. In high school, I was doing mostly landscape and outdoor photography. I had almost no experience with journalism prior to coming to Rice.”

What is your favorite thing about your role in student media?

“Being a part of Student Media and the Thresher forces me to consistently be creative and work on my photography and my craft. [I think] about how to best capture an event and choose the best photo to pair with the stories we publish. I think about the photos we took during unique times on campus like the winter freeze or COVID life on campus. Those are the photos that I believe will be invaluable well into the future when people want to look back.

I also love being in the office and working with the other writers and editors. I think we all feed well off of each other’s energy.”

Photography by Channing Wang

What has been the most rewarding thing about working with student media?

“I’ve always found the most rewarding thing about working for student media is to be able to stay up to date on a broad range of information and news around campus. I suppose this is a general by-product of working on a newspaper, but there’s so many things I would not know about if I wasn’t plugged into the paper week in and week out.

This has helped me build broader perspectives and I think ultimately made me a more diverse person. There’s a lot of things happening at any time on campus and being a part of student media has helped me break out of my little personal bubble.”

Photography by Channing Wang

Do you have any post-graduation plans? 

“I want to do more international travel and have a nice dinner with my friends.”

What is a fun fact about yourself?

“I used to travel to other states in New England to competitively solve Rubik’s cubes.”