Upon my friend Jacob’s recommendation, I absentmindedly applied to join The UCSD Guardian during my freshman year. I did not have any prior experience in journalism, but I did know that I really wanted to build my writing skills and meet people with similar interests.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, it is a gloomy afternoon and I am trudging in the rain from my Roosevelt College dorm to The Guardian office to interview for a news writing position. Because of the pouring rain and even poorer timing, I arrived 15 minutes late to my interview with the News Editor, Tyler. By now, while Tyler has 100% forgotten about it, I will never because… yikes. Although I still often cringe at the first impression that I probably left during that first interview, what I am more proud of is the impact that four wonderful years with The Guardian has left me. 

For two years, I have had the distinct pleasure of being the co-News Editor. Putting together a weekly publication is incredibly difficult — information on issues can be sparse and sources cancel or don’t reply to our emails. Hell, a writer once lost their laptop! Nevertheless, our writers have persisted through my torturous edits and have grown tremendously. I regret not getting to know some of you more this year but I sincerely hope you all know you will always have someone in your corner.

My favorite piece of writing with the organization will 100% be my Disreguardian piece on BTS coming to the 2022 Sun God festival. The Instagram comments on that article really solidified my place as the least popular ARMY on campus. May we someday get to see BTS perform at Geisel Library.

The people in The Guardian are now some of my closest friends and I wanted to take a quick moment to recognize a few of them. To my best friend and co-editor Andrew, thank you for always supporting me and feeding me weird vegan food. To Elias, I admire you because of how cool of a person you are and I appreciate it when you recommend music or shows. Hemmy and Zara, you are true models of what good leadership ought to look like.

The future of The Guardian looks incredibly bright, with people such as Jocelyn, Raymond, Nilou, Kaitlin, and others at the wheel. As for myself, I am excited to live my best life living as a gremlin in The Guardian office in the next year. Please don’t lock me out; xoxo.

Photo courtesy of Troy Tuquero.