Senior Send-off: The Chronicle Experience
I’d only been on Hofstra’s campus for about 48 hours when I joined the Chronicle. Freshly transferred and stuck among hundreds of freshmen during Welcome Week, I was eager to immerse myself in The College Experience (all capitals). I knew I had a knack for grammar rules, spurred by a childhood of voracious reading and editing my more mathematically-minded little sister’s high school essays. Copy was, genuinely, the only section I wanted to sign up for. Before I’d even attended a day of classes, I was on the team.
Being a staff member on the copy team was initially deceptively easy, as I had only an article or two to edit each week. Correcting grammatical and typographical errors is also a fantastic way to feel good at something, which was much needed as I switched my major and minor several times within my first year at Hofstra. Maybe I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my college career – or my life – but at least I could fix those stray Oxford commas!
To me, The College Experience involves wholeheartedly dedicating yourself to at least one College Thing. When I became an assistant copy chief alongside Annabel Hofmann in Jan. 2022, the Chronicle quickly became my Thing.
Being on the e-board side of copy, alongside copy chiefs Julia Razzante and Antonia Moffa, suddenly meant a lot more work: dozens of articles to edit that took up hours during my only free time on the weekends and Monday evenings devoted to layout until past midnight. Nothing about that sounds particularly pleasant, but the words on paper can’t really describe how fun it ended up being. Late Monday nights meant snacks and camaraderie with the rest of the Chronicle’s e-board and arguing over the most particular AP style rules I’d memorized that everyone else hated (for good reason).
This year, I was left in charge of my own fledgling group of assistants to guide through late nights of panicked text threads and weird grammar questions. These past few months have taught me so much. Josie, Madeline, Meredith and Gianna: it has been so, so much fun working with you all. Thank you all for learning with me and for being the easiest, silliest group to manage – you’re all going to kill it next year. Please try to lock in a little more than we do now so you can achieve Madeline’s dream of being out of the office by 10:30 p.m. one day – I believe in y’all!
Antonia, Julia and Annabel: I looked up to you then, and I still do now. Thank you for making this paper a welcoming place and letting me bring up all my weird-but-technically-correct style rules.
Anna, Julian, Alexis, and all the past editors-in-chief and managing editors, you all have been the sturdiest rocks at the center of this paper. Michelle, thank you for answering all of my sports terminology questions and for being a great first-year roomie. Anna, let’s keep up our biweekly texting sprees and D&D gossip. Josie, I’m not sure how much credit I can take for dragging you into the Chronicle, but it’s been so much fun doing this with you.
In a proper copy editor’s fashion, my attempts at writing this send-off were slightly overshadowed by copyediting the rest of the articles for our final issue. Copy editors are the support beams of any newspaper: this fact has been the most fulfilling part of my time at the Chronicle.
I love this paper with my whole heart, and I have loved watching everyone involved help it grow. I hope to see it flourish for years to come.
