After four years of reporting, interviewing, writing, rewriting and editing, the day has finally come when I have to hang up my byline as a Towerlighter.

I’ve written more than 200 articles and held five editorial positions since August 2008, when I found my home away from home in room 309 of the University Union.

Still, I find myself at a loss for words when it comes to expressing to the Towson University community just how much of an impact working for The Towerlight has had on my adult life. I’ve seriously considered purposefully failing all of my courses this semester just to stay a little longer with the amazing staff I’ve grown to see as my second family.

But in the past few weeks, I’ve come to accept that this newspaper has existed, in one form or another, since 1921, and it will go on without me whether I want to embrace that or not. So I’ll use this opportunity, my last “From the Editor’s Desk,” to remember a roller coaster of a four-year career.

I can remember almost every story I’ve ever written, from the 300-word event pieces on open mic nights, to the 1,000-word features on hot-button issues like gun control and alcohol abuse. And the stories on newsprint or thetowerlight.com aren’t the only stories that stay with you. Every person I’ve met, every interview I’ve conducted, has impacted my growth as a journalist.

I’ve done a lot of growing up. I’ve had to be strong enough to put away my emotions to let someone else share theirs. I’ve functioned on little to no sleep for the sake of a story, and even lost sleep just thinking about the sad or scary truths being reported on.

Being a Towerlight reporter and editor gave me an outlet to be a student leader, to learn early in my adult life what it means to be passionate about something to the point of obsession, to make mistakes it can take someone as long as their mid-life crisis to make.

I cannot recommend enough for each and every Towerlight reader to find something to feel as passionately about as I do with this publication, as it will be rewarding in ways nothing else in your college years can provide. There are so many people without whom I could not have done this job. In abbreviated Academy Award acceptance speech style, I’d like to thank the former Towerlight editors who inspired me to do my best for the paper and give me hope that there is, in fact, life after graduation –Kiel McLaughlin, Nick DiMarco, Tyler Waldman, Rachel Fauber and Brian Stelter.

The Baltimore Student Media board of directors, led by Mike Raymond, who taught me how to be a better writer and an even better human being. The many cycles of The Towerlight’s editorial board, who have pushed to change this paper semester after semester, year after year, and who I have the utmost confidence will continue the tradition of excellent journalism for this community.

The helpful and thought-provoking professors in Towson University’s department of mass communication, specifically Stacy Spaulding, who introduced my to the AP Stylebook and taught me lessons in and out of the classroom. My mother, who listened to every aggravated phone call I made in my four years at Towson.

My friends, who understood my passion never took precedence over our relationships and never stopped calling to include me in get-togethers.

And the readers, from the unspoken supporters to the nastiest online commenters. Whether you knew you needed it, every article was for you.

In the words of 90’s rock band Semisonic, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” The “cautiously optimistic freshman,” who wrote an opinion piece as the winner of the Lorraine Mayers Towerlight Scholarship Endowment Fund on the day before her freshman year, is now a cautiously optimistic about-to-be college graduate.

And she wouldn’t have changed a minute of those four years.