I started to write this senior farewell multiple times this year, but could never bring myself to finish. I figured, theoretically, if I never reach the end of the column, I wouldn’t have to actually face this whole “leaving” thing. This time, though, there’s a deadline, literally and figuratively, and I can’t put it off any longer without becoming a fifth year senior. So, in the spirit of both journalism and college life stereotypes, perhaps it’s all too fitting that my last contribution ever to The University News will be started and submitted at the absolute last possible moment.
I know I’m supposed to use this to revel in and reflect on all the deep and profound lessons I’ve learned over the years, preferably drawing parallels to Shakespeare and Chaucer. But similar to those who want so badly to be indie, I’ve found that the harder you try to force it to happen, the more you stray into the realm of a single raised eyebrow and a skeptical “Bitch, please.” So, try to restrain your eyebrows, and let’s do this thing.
I love The UNews. There, I said it. These difficult-to-fold sheets of thin paper with words printed on them have been the source of all my elation, pain, stress, frustration, slap-happiness, sleepiness and lack of doing my homework properly (sorry, professors) for the last three-and-a-half years. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to go to bed before 4:30 a.m. on Thursdays, and not spend every waking hour of the day in an inexplicably cold newsroom with nothing but dry erase boards, dusty Macs and unusually sarcastic and cynical college journalists for company.
But then, without The UNews, there would never have been undercover stings set to Miley Cyrus songs (don’t judge, it made sense at the time), nor would I have learned to respect the unwavering authority of a round of Nose Goes. There would be no icing permanently stuck to my textbooks, since I would never have needed them to prop up a very poorly built UNews gingerbread house. I would never have solved the mystery of what a faux strip tease to “Pomp and Circumstance” in celebration of a birthday would look like (I mean, who hasn’t wondered about that at some point?). I wouldn’t have had as many opportunities to dramatically throw my hands up in the air and loudly demand of no one in particular, “What is the deal with my life?!” a la a “Seinfeld” reference embedded in an episode of “30 Rock.” Also, my “30 Rock” references would’ve been met with more blank stares than usual.
Sure, I may go prematurely gray thanks to this job (you’ll get my bill, UNews). I may have become unusually neurotic about correct grammar and spelling. But it’s been rewarding, challenging and, dare I say it, fun.
For better or for worse, it was through The UNews that I discovered that this is what I like to do. My college years were spent with the generally quirky, outrageous, sharp, witty and irreverent people whom I’ve found to make up the unsteady world of journalism, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s no doubt I’m being propelled into an industry that isn’t doing so hot at the moment. But I’ll always have the fond memories of learning the tricks of the trade in college to keep me warm later in life. You know, like in winter when I haven’t found a job and am living in a refrigerator box somewhere.
In any case, it’s been a wild three-and-a-half years, yet all good things must come to an end. So, like our new writers upon hearing what allegedly happened years ago on the newsroom couches they’re sitting on, I’m outta here.
It’s been said that brevity is the soul of wit. So with my profound literary obligation thus fulfilled, I think it would be best to heed Polonius’ advice and cut myself off here. For me, it wasn’t so much that college was the best four years of my life. Rather, the best three-and-a-half years of my life were The UNews.

Kat Patke is the Editor-in-Chief, graduating from the College of Arts and Sciences.