#501e4c: that’s the hex code for Daily Northwestern purple. It’s engrained in my memory. As a design editor, you need to know the brand.
Being on the design team entailed working late nights to assemble the print paper, finishing anywhere between midnight and 3:30 a.m.
I would walk home alone with nothing but the company of my favorite tracks from “SOUR” by Olivia Rodrigo. Escorted by songs like “good 4 u” or “deja vu,” I would often just pause midway home and stop no matter how I was feeling that night. Everything was too peaceful, too quiet to just brush past in a hurry to get home.
And one night in late February 2024, after working on our “Best of Evanston” issue, I put all the pieces together. It was almost eerie, no cars at all were about at this hour. Taking in the peaceful quiet, I pondered for a minute on Sheridan, looking back at Deering Meadow.
I joined The Daily at the club fair a week into college because I needed an extracurricular, and I’d already worked on a newspaper in high school, so it was worth a shot. However, I am no journalism major, and when I started, I didn’t even know quotes go in their own paragraphs in reported stories.
But that didn’t really matter. I was welcomed by The Daily with open arms and proceeded to carve out my niche in print paper design. A place I would stay in for a long time. Over five quarters — almost half of my time in college.
Up to that point, whenever someone would ask why I stuck around so long I would usually respond with something surface level like “It’s really fun” or “I learn a lot.”
Those responses aren’t inaccurate, but they miss the big picture. In truth, I stuck around because The Daily was the first place in college where I felt I truly belonged. It made me feel like I mattered, like I could be more than I ever imagined.
Having come to this realization, I looked at my watch. “S–t, I need to get to sleep,” I said as I restarted my long walk home for the night.
However, the walk home was not always straightforward. Sometimes there are obstacles in the path.
Almost exactly a month later, I was diagnosed with cancer. As you can tell, I survived. I faced the obstacle one step at a time and eventually made it back to the design room, my home on campus.
The path we take in life isn’t always going to be easy. I know that all too well. You might be sad, tired, angry and think that things can’t possibly get worse, but unfortunately, they just might.
In these times, all you can do is push forward, putting one foot in front of the other and trusting in your support system. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have the friends I made at The Daily to help me along the roughest sections of my journey.
So, what does The Daily mean to me? It means everything. It’s the reason I am still at this school. It’s the reason I didn’t go completely insane sophomore year. It’s the reason behind some of my highest highs and lowest lows, and I am grateful for all of it. Grateful for the smiles, the laughs, and the tears (yes, even the tears).
What started as a simple extracurricular freshman year became an integral part of my life. This may be the end of the road for me when it comes to journalism. Still, I’ll take these memories with me wherever I go.
Now, as a supposedly wise senior crafting this graduation issue, I’ll offer up some advice that I picked up along the way: take that leap of faith because you never know where you’ll land – you might just end up right where you belong.
And so when this graduation issue is all said and done, and the time comes to make the long walk home from the Daily for the last time, I know exactly what I’ll be listening to.
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