It’s funny: These past few weeks, I have been putting off writing this piece. I would tell myself that it was because it would be so easy and quick to write due to the short word count, but the truth is I put it off because I knew writing this would be excruciatingly hard. First, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Millman. Without her, I wouldn’t have been in Mainstream in the first place. She had the extremely hard task of taking over this program from Mr. Woodward while he took his leave, and she made sure that the paper ran to the best of its ability. I spent that first year as the Sports Editor and, while I do love talking sports, I found that I didn’t really find my writing spark until this year as Editor-in-Chief.

These past couple weeks I’ve been reading James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain and while reading about Mr. Baldwin, I found a quote that very much resonates. He writes, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” For me and our paper as whole, this school year was very political. Almost every single article I wrote this year had a political turn to it and, I believe, that was really where I found my footing as a writer. I was critical, and often harsh, when it came to the way America handled a bevy of topics. However, I do not want my criticism to be confused with hatred. Like Baldwin, I too love my country, and my love for this country creates an expectation for it to be great. More importantly, writing these articles actually inspired me. I found that I have a passion for politics, and I attribute this year – one in which I was given free reign to write about any topic under the sun that I saw fit – to my college intention of double majoring in communication and political science. I do this in the hope of helping hold America to those great expectations in the near future. To say this class has had a profound impact on me is an understatement. Thank you to all of those who supported the paper during my two-year stint, both financially and by just being an advocate. Thank you to my fellow staffers who made my job so much easier and produced many great articles. While I may just be a blip in the long history of Mainstream, my years at Mainstream have had an inaudible impact on my life.

College: Tulane University