Erin Auerbach is going to be the new full-time journalism professor at Bakersfield College, replacing the previous professor, Danny Edwards, who is retiring at the end of the semester. Auerbach is going to be teaching Beginning Reporting and advising the student newspaper, The Renegade Rip, in the Fall 2017 semester. She first attended UC Santa Barbara and then moved to Arizona to have a change of pace. She got her master’s degree in theater arts at UNLV and then got her master’s in journalism at USC.

“I’m from the LA area originally, I was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley, and then I actually started college in UC Santa Barbara and then I transferred to Arizona, which most people think I’m crazy for because it was so pretty in Santa Barbara, but I just kind of wanted to get out of California and have a big change of pace, and Arizona certainly offered that. “And then when I graduated from Arizona, I moved back home to LA and lived with my parents for about six months, then I went to Vegas and I spent six years there. That’s where I got my master’s [in fine arts] from UNLV, and then I moved back to California and went to USC and I stayed in California once I came back.

“After I finished USC, I actually lived out in Corona for two years. I wrote for The PressEnterprise; I was a features writer. And the whole time I was at school in USC. And really, when I was living in Vegas was when I started writing. I actually got started in writing using my master’s in theater because local alternative weekly needed someone to write theater reviews, so I wrote theater reviews for a while for Las Vegas Weekly.”

Auerbach got her interest in writing from working at Las Vegas Weekly, as she did not initially want to be a journalist. “I wasn’t one of the people that who kind of did it in high school and liked it and then did it as an undergraduate. I hadn’t really even thought about it. My foster undergrad was that I wanted to do something in performing like singing and acting, or I wanted to work behind the scenes in entertainment.”

What got Auerbach interested in taking the full-time position at BC was when she was asked by a fellow student from USC that was teaching at Los Angeles Harbor College to advise the student newspaper class that LAHC wanted to start up. “So I did, and I found I really, really liked it, so I’ve taught there for the last four years. And I liked it so much I said, ‘This is what I really want to do,’” Auerbach said.

She said that she got a lot from the job at LAHC, and that is why she was interested in getting the job at BC. “I get a lot out of it. I think it’s very fulfilling. I love helping young adults find their way and find their passion for whether it’s writing or communications, and I just think it’s a great opportunity, so that’s really why I went for the job.” Aurbach is still working at her current job, but she gave the school her notice because she is leaving soon to work at BC.