Everyone starts to get excited about their yearbooks in the spring, but so much is already happening behind the scenes even in the weeks leading up to the first day of school.

Before the yearbook staff members jump into working on the yearbook, everyone gets a refresher on basic yearbook skills, terms, software, and processes called “Yearbook Boot Camp.”

“I teach all of the students in the class who are new and even our returning members that don’t remember or could use help remembering the different parts of yearbook; like headlines, how to design them, how to write them, how to create mods, how to create captions so that our yearbook gets the best story possible,” Christina Trevino, yearbook editor-in-chief, said.

Yearbook Boot Camp lasts three weeks and starts with the beginning of classes, before the real work begins.

“The boot camp does make sense because at first when we got here, I thought, you know, they were about to put us straight to work, but I’m glad they didn’t,” Anna Daniels, senior and index writer, said.

Most people who join yearbook for the first time don’t have any journalism experience, and the editors work hard to make sure these people aren’t completely lost.

“I knew what it felt like to be in that position of being completely lost, especially being somebody who didn’t take Journalism One,” Trevino said.

Team building exercises are the first Yearbook Boot Camp activities to take place.

“I like to do this game where we have to piece together a puzzle but somebody has a blindfold on as we’re doing it and the others help navigate them,” Trevino said. “I was able to tell with the way that they were working as teams. They were all able to put together the puzzles during the class period and it just showed that we’re all able to work together.”

During boot camp, one of the many important things staff members learn is how to make mods: the formats for elements on a yearbook page, staff members said.

“Mrs. O calls them mods, but they’re boxes, gray scribbled in boxes, and I just had to cut them out and make my own mods. I learned a lot,” Daniels said.

Not all of the assignments are as cut and dry as this, however.

“My favorite part of Yearbook Boot Camp will probably always be ‘delicious design,’ which is basically where we create a page with things like Twizzlers, graham crackers, M&Ms, chocolate chips, and it was really funny seeing all of them design it,” Trevino said.

According to Daniels, Yearbook Boot Camp teaches more than just how to create mods and space out elements on a page.

“Listening is important,” Daniels said. “Listening is very important. Usually I’m the type of person to say, ‘I don’t have to listen, I’ll catch on later.’ But with yearbook, you have to listen, you have to pay attention, so you know you don’t get anything wrong. Because it’s the yearbook. Nobody wants to open up the yearbook and say, ‘my name is spelled wrong.’ You can’t take that back.”

Through all these important lessons, this year’s staff has stayed excepted and motivated to make a great yearbook.

“All of our new staff members, they’re so excited to do things and our photographers are so excited to cover events,” Trevino said. “And all of our writers are so interactive with the lessons and stuff that we have planned out for them. I haven’t had one person give me problems yet. I feel like that just goes to show that we’re going to have a really good staff this year.”