Exit Letter: Beyond the Routine

I am an incredibly consistent person. I always crave grapefruit juice. I do my laundry every Friday. I’ve had the same best friend since I was eight years old. Every time I am hangry, I go to the kitchen to declare there is no possible food I want, and then one of my housemates asks me if I want hummus, and I grumpily admit that that sounds perfect.

So, during the incredibly unstable, chaotic time of beginning college, it was predictable that I would find new forms of consistency to stabilize myself. When Emma Burd ’26 told me during my first week here about how she was writing about space potatoes, I was in, and since then, the newspaper has been a constant presence in my life. My routine was instantly shaped by it, starting with Monday Features meetings, and then soon after adding weekly dinners with Emma and Humphrey Chen ’26, Saturday writing days, Sunday editorials, and Tuesday production nights.

But more than the routine of producing an entire newspaper every week, the consistency came from the people. Whether that was Humphrey making the most outrageous out-of-pocket comment you could imagine, or Joey Supik ’27 dressing up as Scrooge every Tuesday night, or Kei Lim ’25 playing Shawn Mendes on repeat until 1 a.m., I was surrounded by people who were consistent, week after week. No matter what was going on in my personal life, when I came into the newsroom, I knew that the people who were a part of my life would be there, as always.

We all came from different social universes and life experiences. But while my friends outside of the newsroom would murmur in sympathy when I reported my increasingly later and later Tuesday bedtimes, no one except the people in the newsroom knows what that actually feels like — what it feels like to simultaneously cut 1,000 words from a Features piece and write an article the night of and fix the most horrendous InDesign issues and proof dozens of pages while also laughing and discussing politics and singing along to music and gossiping about our converging lives. (Shout out to Jayda Ma ’28 who, despite being from Texas, knows my ex-boyfriend from New York.) Here was this strange thing connecting all of us that no one outside that newsroom would fully understand. There was something so comforting about that. 

Of course, many parts of the newspaper are very much not stable. I wasn’t even supposed to “retire” yet — I started my editor-in-chief term a year earlier than I wanted to. Every week, something unexpected goes wrong, and we have to scramble on Tuesday night to find a solution. And let’s not even bring my sleep schedule into this.

I hope I made a mark on this newspaper, beyond how I inspired the name “Juniper Slagel” in Caroline Flinn ’28’s satire, or spoiler alert — was the answer for a mini crossword clue (although I was so touched by these little mentions). I hope my reporting, from cross-contamination issues in Val to how President Donald Trump’s second administration would impact Amherst College, helped inform the Amherst community and create real change. I hope that I have been part of ensuring The Student remains a source of thorough and accurate journalism. I hope that during my tenure, I rebuilt a sense of joy and community in the newsroom. And I hope our audience enjoyed the very, very large 2025 Commencement Issue of the paper, which was my pet project as editor-in-chief.

The idea that this core part of my experience here is ending after a mere two and a half years is so overwhelming, scary, and also somewhat relieving. I have put so much into the paper, and now, I am tired. Who knows what new things I will explore now that I have 12 to 18 hours more free every week? Maybe this is a new chapter for me, where I am (obviously) still consistent, but add a little more exploration and adventure into my life.

So, as I leave (I write even as I know I will totally not be gone and will have no boundaries with The Student as usual), I need to thank all the people who have made my college experience consistent thus far:

To all my friends, including my 19 housemates (as I write this, Adela Thompson Page ’26 and Emma Leroy ’27 really want all Zü members to be individually mentioned, but I will not). Thank you for listening to me endlessly talk about the newspaper and checking in on me on Wednesday mornings.

To all the editors I have spent hours and hours with in that potentially mold-infested newsroom. I’m grateful to have become friends with many of you. You all mean more to me than you know. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

To Noor and Leo, two editors whom I was never in a section with, but looked up to immensely. Both of you were instrumental in shaping me into the journalist and editor I am today.

To Sonia and Eleanor, my original editors! Thank you for nurturing me and making me feel like I was a part of the paper when I had imposter syndrome.

To Michael, Tuesday nights would have been so much worse without the snack brackets. Thank you for exposing me to the weirdest Goldfish and Pringles flavors ever.

To Edwyn and Lauren, my lovely senior managing editors! You have been so so incredible this semester. Edwyn, I am excited to see you and Anna crush it as the new editors-in-chief next semester.

To my HEJhogs, Emma and Humphrey. Let us forever have boba catch-ups. (Also, thank you Emma, for helping me figure out what the hell to write for these thank yous.)

To Kei, thank you for being an important part of my newspaper experience.

To Dustin, I promise I’ll write you a profile someday. I love you or whatever.

To Naima, how on earth could I do this without you? I’m so happy to retire with you — now, we will read the newspaper in rocking chairs together, getting extreme FOMO.