I’ll admit that the thought of attending a conference made up of the best and brightest journalistic minds from around the country caused me endless anxiety.

Sure, I was lucky enough to be counted in the 51 students who were selected to attend the Al Neuharth Free Spirit and Journalism Conference (Free Spirit) in Washington, D.C., but I thought that I was going to end up friendless by the end of it. With so many people at the top of a single field put together for five days, I thought the competition was going to be fierce, the tension so thick that it made the air feel like molasses—

Instead, I was surprised to the contrary.

The people I met at Free Spirit were editors-in-chief of their student publications, homecoming queens, rock stars (one of the kids had even been featured in a music video of band I had seen live a few years ago), valedictorians, and everywhere in between. And they were also the kindest people I’ve ever met.

What I didn’t know before was that when you put a group of 51 intelligent people in one room who all have a passion for the same thing, it’s not always war that breaks out. They aren’t there to create tension—sure, our debates got heated sometimes, but that wasn’t because of any sort of hatred. It was because we all had the same burning fire that told us to stick to our guns and fight for what we believe in.

Those five days in D.C. gave me an education that will apply not only to my career but to the rest of my life. Between getting the opportunity to see Chuck Todd do a taping of “Meet the Press” (and watching him get knocked flat on his butt by a combination of a useless interview with Mike Huckabee and some angry tweets from viewers) and getting the chance to participate in a mock trial with the head of the FISA court presiding, I certainly learned a lot about what my (hopeful) future as a political reporter looks like.

I learned even more, however, from my fellow scholars. Despite having jam-packed days, we managed to find time to pester our two chaperones (sorry, Dylan and Alix—you didn’t deserve all the crap we gave you), play games of Cards Against Humanity that had us in stitches, get into heated debates over anything from our music tastes to the state of affairs in Syria and get up to all sorts of shenanigans that made the conference what it was.

I think that was the most important part of attending Free Spirit. I learned how to work with other people who were as committed, if not more, to journalism as I was.

I doubt that I’ll ever get a chance to attend a conference like the one from this past summer, but if I ever got the opportunity again, I would take it immediately. In a heartbeat.

To learn more about the Al Neuharth Free Spirit and Journalism Conference, visit freespirit.org.