We entered college four years ago as a class eager to experience self-exploration and growth together, excited to take full advantage of the University’s myriad programs. By the time I exit just a few weeks from now, that transformation will have been realized, but to a different degree and just from a single experience that spanned a career.
To outsiders, my Duke experience could be considered three years of confinement and one year of probation-turned-release come senior year. I’d prefer to call the former voluntary surrender. Through junior year, my friends had already ingrained an image of me shackled to my desk at The Chronicle for 70-to-80-hour workweeks.
Anyone who has been in my position at the paper, or any comparable one for that matter, can attest to its thankless, under-appreciated and unforgiving nature. The only immediate gratification is from the stunning and always error-proof product you pick up on newsstands Monday through Friday. The only recognition is from the vitriol of critical online comments and emails received the day a story runs.
I went into it knowing that, and not only left it with no regret or resentment, but rather an unparalleled experience that I wish upon every undergraduate at Duke. The hours were long, the efforts directly thankless, but the lasting results were the sanctity of a brotherhood that forever intertwined my life with those who became both my colleagues and my family.
I never had a plan and likely never will. But my years at The Chronicle gave me direction. I entered Duke with major “undeclared,” and walked into The Chronicle’s attic office during orientation week expecting nothing more than something to do in my free time. I would later learn, to both my dean and my academic advisor’s dismay, that classes would soon become this so-called “free time.”
Some of the wisest words alumni and fellow journalists have shared with me apply to so many Duke students: Journalism is about the reveal, it’s about telling the hard truth. It’s also about creating community and conveying why we, as citizens, should care.
My hard truth is that my Duke education came from beyond the classroom with three years at The Chronicle and one year emeritus. When my term as news editor concluded and I sashayed out the heavy wooden doors of 301 Flowers a year ago, I didn’t realize that my personal graduation had just passed.
But my final year away from the office allowed me to reflect on the effervescence that were the years prior. My work may not have been clearly lucrative, but the community we’ve created comes in layers: our Chronicle family, our network of sources, and you, our readers.
V. 105 was both my rock and my momentum. Will and Hon, there isn’t enough I could put in these thin pages about you both, but you have my eternal gratitude and appreciation for the work we’ve done together. I couldn’t be more proud of how far we’ve come and where we’re all going. V. 105 DHs, I’m extending to you the public thanks that you so belatedly deserve. V. 105 babies, you’re always going to be my freshmen—and I’m so incredibly proud of you for the perseverance you’ve shown. Jarvis, thanks for not forgetting me. EBSAK for life.
Finally, my completely unqualified and unsolicited message to those who still have the benefit of more than a few weeks left at Duke: Take your experience beyond the classroom and that 350-page textbook. Choose one, or a few, activities to be dedicated to, but choose ones that you’re truly passionate about. Let them offer you the direction my activity gave me.
Commit and learn to be selfless. For some reason, the greatest copy editors always find immense satisfaction in seeing the result of hours of editing, never to see their own name in the byline. I’ve realized that my senior year has been one of searching to assuage the void that was once filled by my leadership at the paper. Simply put, creating tangible results and nurturing the future of my organization was more satisfying than “living up senior year,” regardless of the dearth of explicit appreciation or gratitude.
Yet, through such drought, the true value of a craft is realized. A legacy is carried out by the future leadership of the organization, by the apprentices who stayed and performed for an implicitly rewarding erudition, toward an increasingly worthwhile goal. That’s incomparably more touching and telling than any thank you note one could ever receive.
This isn’t a plug to join The Chronicle. Rather, it’s a push to find passion outside of the four-walled, blackboarded classroom you’re so familiar with. I sincerely hope that your Duke experience is as unique as mine and that you can realize success and satisfaction through selfless dedication. Build your own community and tell your hard truth; show, through your own work, why your successors should care. This dexterity is where we Duke students stand out and where our once quixotic ambitions become reality. It is how we come together to build our network of communities and work toward a greater good.
Emmeline Zhao is a Trinity senior. She is the former news editor and former university editor.
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