Certain challenges every college student expects to take on: juggling a full class schedule with a full social life, deciding on a major, changing your mind and deciding on a different major…but learning you have psoriatic arthritis? Not exactly something Vanessa Shortley expected to confront while studying journalism five years ago. Yet, rather than buckle under a daunting diagnosis, she put her sleuthing skills to work, sussing out the who, what, where, when, how and why of her condition, so that she could not only deal with it—but defy it. Today, the 27-year-old editor of a weekly newspaper, Vanessa shares her secrets for surmounting the personal and professional difficulties posed by psoriatic arthritis.