I joined The Winonan in October of my freshman year when I was looking for a quick buck. Originally, I was actually hoping to start off as the social media manager; I’m so glad McKenna, our editor-in-chief at the time, had me start writing instead.

Looking back on the first couple months of my freshman year, I can’t help but think of my 18-year-old self thinking she would do better as a social media manager than a writer; this is rather comical to me now considering I have always been an English major and knew close to nothing about social media management.

I could write about all of my Winonan experiences for an entire printed Winonan edition and longer, so I’ll keep this to a limited list of fun memories and the people I have to thank in true academy award speech style.

After publishing over 50 articles in the past three years, I’ve come to realize several pieces of advice I could have given to my freshman year self. 18-year-old me probably would not have listened, but here is my advice regardless:

It won’t always take you seven hours to write an article! I know the topic is probably incredibly nuanced and you want it to be perfect, but put the computer down and breathe a little. Take a break, read a book, hang with your friends and look at it later. The words will come eventually, and you’ll find journalistic writing to come relatively naturally to you soon.

Speaking of nuanced topics, don’t be so afraid to write about that one thing that’s highly political, complicated, historically meticulous and/or completely out of your comfort zone. This is where you will learn the most, both about these events and topics but also about the human perception regarding them. Have faith in your ability to write both respectfully and impactfully.

Savor every moving interview, cover story, printed photo and email expressing a reader’s gratitude. You will learn to hold onto each of these moments as a reason to keep writing, even and especially when the tears streaming down your face at two a.m. are illuminated only by the open document on your computer screen, and also when somebody retorts (again) that there are “exactly four typos” in the latest edition. Your articles matter. Period.

Take every hate comment and email as a moment to grow, learn and giggle a little. Hate mail is usually more funny than it is scary. Oh, and people will disagree with everything all the time, so you will get used to it.

Finally, InDesign will get easier, week by week. However, the font will still automatically turn to Minion instead of Times New Roman. You will not figure out how to change that, and will continue to scream about it every editing meeting. No one will bat an eye, though.

Now, onto the academy awards-style thank you session! Skip to word 863 if you don’t care to hear about people you don’t know (I would, too).

To my friends and family who have read my articles since day one back in 2021, thank you for telling me all the good things and keeping the knowledge of various typos and mistakes to yourself. I can sleep soundly because of you.

Doug, thank you for keeping me humble and looking for the best in all of us. I will miss our biweekly meetings where we spend ten minutes talking about the paper and the remaining 30 talking about life. You give me crap when I need it the most, which I appreciate more than you know.

McKenna and Gabriel, thank you for being wonderful editors in chief during my first couple years. Your encouraging emails and comments during meetings were invaluable to me then and now. Thank you McKenna specifically for pushing me to be a writer and not the social media manager, because I would have sucked at that and you did all of us a favor.

Sophie, thank you for being with me for the past three years! Seeing you grow into the incredible editor-in-chief you are today has been inspiring and I have loved to see everything you’ve done for the paper. Singing simlish Katy Perry with you and Gabriel is on my top-ten greatest college moments of all time and it still makes me laugh thinking about it.

To Syerah, Joe, Keaton, Reanne, Kailey, Kara, Karleigh and Elly, thank you for being my fellow editors and tolerating and even appreciating all of the various bouts of frustration I would have while formatting pages. You have all had a hand in the stories and pages I have created and I will miss our three hour sessions of snacking and story-telling in the Winonan office.

And to Alayna, I can’t wait to see what you do with the features section. Our energies match so closely sometimes it’s scary and I’m happy to pass the torch to another CALT major, and a very cool one at that. Never doubt yourself and know that InDesign DOES get easier, it just takes a bit! You are going to do incredibly, and I can’t wait to see it happen!

Not having my Sunday nights taken up by Winonan meetings is going to feel very empty after having booked Sunday evenings since the fall of ‘21. With my busy schedule next semester, I know I won’t be able to put in the effort I want to put in, but maybe I’ll come back once in a while. 😉

To my future self, I hope you still have your favorite articles you’ve written hanging up on your wall to remind you of the value of your work and the role of the newspaper in your undergrad career. Considering I check the Winonan website almost once daily, I don’t see that stopping anytime soon; the hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of words you’ve typed will not go unnoticed!

To the rest of the Winonan team, I hope you’ll miss my unnecessary comments at every meeting and inability to keep quiet. Never doubt your abilities and write your hearts out! If the Winonan has one fan and if your articles have one reader, it’s me.