Walk into a newsroom of journalists and you will smell the coffee and see people rushing for their 14th bathroom break of the day. You will see a business “about people and why they do what they do, and what it all means”.

That’s how Jack Smith, the 72-year-old former newspaper reporter and editor, described it to 30 visiting students from Auburn High School.

While growing up, Smith waited every day for the mail carrier to pull up and drop the newspaper off. “I’d read and study every issue, sometimes for hours on end，” he said. The stories and design of the paper began his love for journalism.

His first route when he went to college wasn’t journalism though. He first wanted to become a civil engineer until someone told him the amount of math and physics involved. He then changed to the business school, eventually making the move to journalism. Paul Burnett, standing on the same place as Smith did during his speech, inspired him while he was in college.