Thanks for the memories

Thanks for the memories

Lauren Gorla EIC

I’ve thought about this column for months now. I have dreaded the moment that I would finally sit down and try to put four years worth of memories and experiences into a few hundred words.

I have seen many goodbye columns come and go over my four years of working here and always wondered what mine would eventually look like. Would I be sad to leave but grateful for all the great people I met? Maybe I would throw up a middle finger to the haters (you know who you are), or come to some great conclusion that college is just a phase in our lives and we are more than the GPA we graduate with.

While all of these columns would be fine and dandy to write, it’s just not that easy to translate what happens in our offices to the greater Georgia Southern community.

No one understands the satisfaction of blasting “Ignition (Remix)” at the end of layouts, or why we would ever give up every Monday and Wednesday night of our lives to making a paper that someone will always find a problem with.

I couldn’t begin to explain why our jokes are funny or why my face will live on in the office photoshopped to Lana Del Ray’s album covers.

Our movie nights, potlucks, seemingly endless meetings, staring contests, desk knick knacks, squad trips to the Union, they’re all just things that from the outside look weird or mundane. But for us, they’re the critical foundations of who we are within Student Media.

Student Media made me. The people that I met these past four years each had their own little moments of teaching me and shaping me into who I am now, a person who in a short week and a handful of days will be a college graduate.

The time has come to leave Student Media behind, and to move on to “bigger and better things.” And while I’m sad about closing the door to the newsroom one last time, those bigger and better things would not be possible without four years of hard work and support from the people who grew to be some of my closest friends.

So, here’s to the people who believed in the overeager freshman who so desperately wanted to get every front-page byline. The sophomore who had no idea which major would be the right one. The junior who thought maybe her life was figured out only to have a wrench thrown in the plans. And finally, to the senior who was lucky enough to come to work every day surrounded by her friends.

None of the great things I’ve done or the memories I have would’ve been possible without the collection of people I’ve met over these four long, rewarding and memorable years. Keep being great, and don’t forget about your graduated friends who still want the late night snaps at layout and typos in the paper.