Senior send-off: If you can make it to 500 words please do
Photo courtesy of Talha Siddiqui
The first time I came into The Chronicle office was a mess, I had no idea where to go, and even with the instructions on how to get to Room 203, I wandered lost and confused around the second floor of the Student Center, before finding the office in the corner of the hallway. It would eventually become the same office where I would stay late completing spreads, doing work for classes and even just sitting talking to the other editors, many of whom would end up becoming friends that have left a lasting impact on me and have shaped me as a person.
When I finally met the two editors that offered me the position to be an official member of The Chronicle, Robert Kinnaird and Peter Soucy, I was anxious, not knowing anybody in the office and feeling out of place as a non-journalism student. I didn’t expect to get this far and figured the most that would happen is submitting a handful of pictures for each issue here and there. I saw the effort the two of them, and the rest of the editors and assistant editors would put into their work and the layout every Monday night, with the clear goal of having that issue be their best work yet. This was something that I wanted to implement into my own life and work, and over the next two years would draw inspiration from as I watched all my colleagues advance and progress in their academic and professional careers.
The Chronicle gave and taught me a lot. It gave me a safe space to complain about the many issues that plague Hofstra University and its many departments. The Chronicle taught me how to work with others, and I mean genuinely work with others, not just struggle through it for a semester and never see them again like is the case with many classes. It taught me how to be a better photographer, and I learned how to use new features of Photoshop I never used before, take photos in environments where I can’t stage the shot or ask someone to move out of the way, having to sift through hundreds of photos before I can find even a handful of useable ones.
The past two years with The Chronicle have not gone how I thought they would, with being forced out of our cramped but beloved office, having to finish the last three semesters of college from my bed and completing all the remaining spreads late at night over Zoom instead of side by side each other, struggling to work on one screen where you can’t describe what you’re trying to say and losing your sanity as each minute ticks by closer to midnight on Saturday night.
I could not have done it without my co-editors Robert Kinnaird and Adam Flash, and our new assistant Jacob Lewis, who has been picking up my slack since he joined. And thank you to the op-ed section for dealing with my ridiculous comments over the past two years, being tortured by whatever ideas left my mouth as they were forced to be seated next to the multimedia computer.
Thank you to The Chronicle and everyone who I met through it, for giving me a place to go every Monday after classes, a place where I made new and long lasting friendships and a place where I felt I was welcomed even if I didn’t fit the mold of a journalist.
