I will never forget the day my first article was due. I stood outside of Gregory Gym desperately looking for a student source an hour before my deadline, willing myself to talk to someone. 

“We need your story to make the paper today,” my editor Skye had told me. I was not sure what was more terrifying — not getting my article in by 5 p.m. or walking up to strangers and willing them to sit down for an interview with me. 

The story was about the lack of deadlift platforms at various UT gyms, and my task was to find someone who loved to deadlift and had a strong opinion about it.

After 45 minutes of awkward attempts and multiple rejections to interview requests, I managed to get a short recording on my phone and ran to the basement in victory. The shaky voice note I managed to get on my phone ended up becoming a part of my first byline. 

For every embarrassing interview on Speedway, I am grateful for my editors for pushing me.

I will miss the frantic energy of drafting breaking news Tweets in the middle of the airport or during my lectures. I will miss being asked to cover drab speeches from the likes of Mike Pence or walking the 30 minutes to the Capitol to cover protests. 

The news department will always have a special place in my heart. There is no other group of people that would throw a pizza party after a long day of classes just to cover the midterm elections.

Thank you Peter for keeping me humble and tearing apart the pieces I thought were impeccable with criticism that was almost always spot on.

Brooke, Tori and Anna: Thank you for catering to my outlandish pitches. 

From pool party to drunk pitch to picnic and 10 p.m. sleepy-pitch, I tear up when I remember those moments.

To Hope, thank you for listening to my midday rants and playing Taylor Swift to drown them out. 

To Ali, Kevin and Morgan, thank you for running 5Ks with me even after editing seven stories.

To Samantha and Skye, thank you for helping me grow my career and giving me the confidence to continue writing despite not having a traditional journalism background.

To Katy, thank you for always being there for coffee runs, giggles and quite literally holding me up when I was down.

To the reporters who first started off with me — Joelle, Rylie, Maddie and Leila — I am so happy to see y’all grow alongside me. 

Thank you for making the basement my second home. All of y’all truly made me the writer and editor I am today.