Dear Dominican University Student, Staff and Faculty,
When I first started at the Star as a general assignment reporter as a freshman in 2018, I would never have predicted the realization of the current moment. Walking into the campus with big dreams and ambitions, I wanted to accomplish wondrous things for the world. Within the span of four years here, I learned that progress takes time and commitment.
On a corner of the campus, near the grotto, there is a maze laid to the ground in a ripple pattern of red and blue. When I first walked into the path, I sought for the shortest path to the center. I fixed my eyes upon the center, tried not being led astray by various turns and devoted my attention to reaching the goal. However, as they say, life happens, and things flipped at the inflection point of 2020. I watched as the people I knew from the Star left abruptly, leaving only us three students who were convinced that the Star cannot disappear amid all this. Student journalism must stay.
Through this path of reporting on-campus, we as student journalists must come to grips with hard conversations even as we tried to figure out life on our own. And after hours of grueling interviewing and coming up with the right words, I often ask myself: Is there anyone out there who really cares about what I’m writing?
The most important lesson I realized now, is that I must keep going even when the going gets tough and seemingly leads to nowhere. Perhaps through an act of faith or a human instinct to survive, I seek to internally acknowledge my emotions to let it go so I shall move on.
In a series of twists and turns in this segment of my journey, you were truly the highlights. Thank you for reading, writing and speaking out in the moments that now passes off to another chapter of DU history.
And I stand, at the center of the maze, pondering despite how different we all were or the paths we took, all of life are heading toward the same destination in the end.
It is a humbling experience to have been the editor of the Star and I leave you with one of my favorite quotes from freshman year:
“Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
Chelsea, we are reading your writing!! Your voice and words matter! Jane Hseu