Don't give up on the truth: We must continue to defend it to the end

I am attending school to become a journalist. This was not always my goal. I went through phases, as most children and adolescents do. My doctor phase was by far the longest and most involved phase. I was pre-med for one semester before I jumped ship and realized my heart wasn’t in the right place to succeed and be happy in that career. I took a journey from the Chemistry Lab Building to Weimer Hall, and I never looked back.

Part of the reason I was so afraid to make the change was fear of job security. As a pre-med student, I never worried about eventually having a job that paid money. As a future journalist, this is not the case. Plenty of people with journalism degrees don’t have the job they went to school for. Now more than ever, my future career is under fire. To make matters worse, my field of interest within journalism is science and health.

In the current political climate, journalism is under attack. Proliferation of “fake news” and “alternative facts” has made a joke out of the media’s dedication to providing people with real news. Science is not safe, either. From climate-change denial to the creation of rogue Twitter accounts from government science agencies, this is not a particularly good time for science or science media.

I’m not writing this column to complain. I’m writing this to make a point. My point is this: Do not give up. While I am admittedly nervous about what the future holds for me and those pursuing similar goals, I am not backing down. I am not going to change my mind and settle into a “safe” profession. Both journalism and science are dedicated to the truth. We’ve been taught from a young age that the truth is the most important thing. Time progressed, and we realized people can rise to the top by lying, cheating, denying and deceiving. While some people are okay with that, I am not.

I am in no way saying you must pick an unstable career to be an effective person and help the world. We still need people to conduct business as usual. The world may actually explode otherwise. I am, however, saying that in order to fix what is broken, we need people who are willing to adopt an unsteady role. Basically, the world needs you to be brave.

I will defend the truth until the bitter end. I refuse to sell out. I refuse to change my dreams because they aren’t as safe or stable as they once were. Most importantly, I refuse to stop trying to make the truth available to those who seek it. I will fight for what I believe in, even if it’s hard and some people have made it extremely hard to do so.

In order to fix what is broken, we have to take matters into our own hands. We can’t wait for those in charge to do it for us, because they won’t. The greatest triumphs are often born from the most unlikely of circumstances. Here is our unlikely circumstance. Let’s get to work.

Taylor Cavaliere is a UF journalism and psychology sophomore. Her column appears on Mondays.