Gregory Cross

Sanjott Follows in Sister’s Footsteps, Finds His Own Path at SLU

They say home is where you make it and for Sanjott Singh, Saint Louis University fit the bill...or should we say Billiken.

When Sanjott Singh made the 40-minute drive down highway 70 from his hometown of O’Fallon Missouri to the campus of Saint Louis University to pick up his sister for holiday breaks, he started to envision a path of his own.

Sanjott Singh is in his second year at St. Louis University where he is close enough to home for a weekend trip, but also far enough to feel like the college experience. After graduating from Fort Zumwalt South, Singh saw a future in journalism as a way to combine his love for travel and photography while making a career out of it. “The number one priority for me is being able to travel for like a profession, be able to see the world, that would be really nice,” says Singh.

Singh’s decision to attend SLU wasn’t random, he had an idea of what he was getting into while watching his sister, Jaskiran Singh, complete her journalism degree last May. “She would come home for the weekend. Me and my mom would drive over to pick her up.” Singh continues, “So I already had exposure to the campus, I knew about the culture and everything from hearing my sister talk about it.”

After a successful freshman year, Singh was ready to continue checking off items on his college bucket list which included attending more concerts, exploring the city, and meeting new people, a factor in which he credits as one of his favorite parts of college thus far. “I made a friend group that was really close my freshman year of college, they're really supportive,” said Singh.

The 20-year-old sophomore was ready with new ideas and new friends to take on the city of St. Louis for his second year in a row, but a global pandemic had other plans. The COVID-19 pandemic forced some classes and activities at SLU to shift to online-only status, which was an unexpected hurdle for Singh. “when you're young, you expect to like be able to party and have all these new experiences, but Covid really threw everything away.,” said Singh.

While Covid may have halted operations this year, Singh was able to achieve a few of the goals he set before college, one that included growing, learning, and exploring the unknown, “coming to SLU, I was placed in this urban environment in the city, and I got exposed to so many different cultures.”

Making the move from the suburbs of O’Fallon, Missouri to St. Louis has helped open Singh’s range of ideas and allowed SLU to become a vehicle for growth both outside and inside the classroom. “taking humanities and like social sciences, classes that exposed me to new topics I had never thought of before, so completely changed my mindset.” Singh said.

Using everything he learned during his four years of college, Singh hopes to take his newfound mindset and scholastic skills and land a career in journalism. Singh looks forward to potentially situating himself at a local newspaper and eventually making his way to a legacy media organization in a big city like New York or Los Angeles where he can travel the country and cover any beat that comes his way. He says it wouldn’t hurt if it includes photography as well.

While he looked to his older sister for inspiration, Singh is already starting on a path of his own with his collegiate work, including recently covering the student election on campus. To follow Sanjott Singh’s journalistic work at SLU, check out his blog site: https://singhsanjott283.wixsite.com/cmm2100.