I’d like to say my time working at the S&B has gotten easier over the last four years. With all the interviewing, writing and editing under my belt, it would be easy to assume that nothing this job throws at me could be a surprise. And yet, a tricky story with opposing sides and contrasting voices can bring me right back to square one and I feel like I’m a first-year freelance writer all over again, pacing outside the doors of ITS, convincing myself to walk inside and demand the answers to my questions getting ignored in someone’s inbox. 

While many of my fellow writers and editors joined the S&B staff spurred by a journalistic calling, my reasoning was decidedly less career-oriented. It was a cool spring day in the Spencer Grill when I spotted the back page of a print S&B taken up by a photo of the fall 2019 staff, grinning, and chummy and looking all-around like the best friends a girl could dream of. In that moment, I knew I had to take this freelancing thing seriously, and when we were all sent home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I took the opportunity to apply for a staff writer, step one in my ultimate plan to infiltrate the paper’s ranks.

Writing news for a college campus nearly empty of students seemed both implausible as well as impossible, but it had some shining moments. I pursued stories that I cared deeply about, including coverage of the first main-stage production at the College with an entirely Black cast, which was also the first main-stage show directed by a student. I got to talk to first-year students finding community online, and ultimately got put on the Discord CEO’s watchlist. Perhaps my proudest moment was getting “sex doll” into a headline. 

By my third year, I was ready to take things up a notch, and I applied for the arts editor position. Little did I know, that year had more in store for me than pitching stories about student art exhibitions. Thank god my work was paying off in more than premature gray hair — I was finally creating art that I enjoyed with people I loved. Afternoons spent with Abraham Teuber `22 and Alanis Gonzalez `22 coming up with new-fangled ways for scorpios to show their horny side were unmatched (Celestial Maiden signing off.) 

Taking on the editor-in-chief position during my fourth year was both an exciting opportunity and a daunting task, and the trials as well as the successes — yay website! — over the following year only confirmed both. Just this past week, working on a breaking news piece with Taylor Nunley `26 made me realize for the upteenth time why I hate this job and why I’m equally drawn to it. Surprise, talking to people who do not trust you or want anything to do with you is not fun, and having enough people tell you “no” can make it pretty hard to remember why it’s necessary to keep writing stories the public deserves to know. But seeing the resilience of this semester’s underclassmen staff writers has reminded me why we ask questions of people who at first glance don’t want to talk to us, why we turn around repeatedly vetted and fact-checked articles in just a few hours and why we deliver the news to our community as honestly and thoughtfully as possible.

Just in the last week, I’m already sure that the paper is being left in capable hands under the leadership of Eleanor Corbin `24 and Nick El Hajj `24 who are taking on the role of editors in chief.

I want to say thank you to Abraham for being an incredible editor and an even better friend. To Lyle Muller, our professional advisor, thank you for providing consistently solid advice in this ever-fluctuating field. Thanks Millie Peck `23 for being a source of sanity in the chaos that the publications office inevitably descends into every Thursday night. And finally, I want to thank Allison Moore `24, my partner in crime since day 1, a.k.a. September 2021. 

This job doesn’t get any easier, but it doesn’t become any less important, either. And I had a pretty fun time along the way.