When I was looking at colleges in high school, I didn’t know what I wanted to major in, but I did know two things: 1) I wanted to be a writer and 2) I didn’t want to be a journalism major.
After jumping around to almost every major in the School of Communication, I wound up falling in love with journalism after learning just how exciting it was to use my writing to share other people’s stories. Writing for The Hofstra Chronicle really helped me reach that place, and I couldn’t be more thankful.
Unlike most other journalism majors who probably worked for their school papers in high school, The Chronicle was my first real taste of writing articles outside the classroom. When I finally decided to become a journalism major during my sophomore year, I was immediately drawn to the Features and Arts and Entertainment sections.
It was always exciting when one of the editors, including my now co-editor Brianna Holcomb, would reach out to me to cover an event because it made me feel like a strong, reliable writer, and it gave me the confidence to step out of my comfort zone and cover events and topics that I wasn’t very familiar with, like art galleries and chorus concerts. And now that I’m the editor of a section, I know how amazing it is to have reliable writers who I know will submit a story each week when I ask them to.
Brianna, or “BH” as I call you in our Gmail, I know that we like to joke that you picked me to be your assistant and then co-editor because we have the same name, but I really think we have made a great team this past year. The long layout nights when we tried to cut down 900-word articles and made some amazing headlines full of puns (some of my favorites were “Fetty Takes Fall Fest to a New High” and “Fetty Says ‘Hey, What’s Up, Hello’ to Hofstra”) are ones that I will forever pride as a journalist.
Rob, you’re an amazing writer and assistant, and I know you’re going to be an awesome editor next year. Please continue the pun-filled legacy of the Arts and Entertainment section and make us proud.
As I look back on my four years at Hofstra, I couldn’t be more thankful for the people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had. I feel like I could go on and on about The Chronicle and the people I’ve met at Hofstra, but I don’t want to rant, so I’ll just give a quick shout out to my friends from Delft (the only people I know who would stay up until 3 a.m. playing Monopoly), Forrest, the Hofstra English Society and, of course, The Chronicle staff.
It’s crazy to think that after all the articles I’ve written for The Chronicle in the past few years, this is my last one.