It’s the end of another winter term here at Fanshawe College and for me, the end of my student career at Fanshawe.

I started at Fanshawe fresh out of high school, taking a general one-year business diploma program. After flipping and flopping from marketing, to accounting, to finance, I decided to take a break from school and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

Cut to three years later and I was still unsure what to do, but I knew I wanted to go back to school. My mom sat me down and said, “Why not take the radio broadcasting program?” and I said, “You know what? Why not.”

And so began my second student experience here at Fanshawe.

Radio broadcasting was different. Business had so many students, it was normal for professors to not know your name. But in radio, I was in a class of 12 students. It felt so much more intimate and thus more intimidating.

I still wasn’t sold, but came to love the smaller classes and more personal learning, so I enrolled myself into broadcast journalism. And now after four years, I am getting ready to graduate and move forward into a full-time job.

Do I know what I want to do yet? Nope. But I am excited for what comes next for me.

During this last year, I had the absolute honour of working for the Interrobang. This has been the best part-time job, working with peers from my program and meeting new people.

I feel like I've seen huge changes since beginning at the Interrobang. Throughout the year, I’ve noticed how much more confident my writing is and how much more open I am in my pieces.

I was so nervous to have my voice heard through my articles at the beginning of the year and now I am so much more comfortable letting it all hang loose.

I feel like, especially in my last few article submissions, you could really get a sense of who I am as a person.

I am also shocked at how much I came to love opinion articles. Through the journalism program, we are taught that journalism has no bias and although that is true, there is definitely some wiggle room. Especially when discussing romantasy books.

This part-time job has been a huge game-changer. Before I even graduated with my journalism diploma, I was able to work as a professional journalist with a newsroom that has been the heart of Fanshawe’s community for over 50 years.

Although I don’t know if I'm any closer to figuring out my life and where I want to end up, I can say I had such an amazing year, learning more about my writing style and what I like to write about.

And let me tell you a little secret. I am absolutely terrified of what this next chapter of my life is going to bring and just generally nervous about the uncertainty of the future. I am getting ready to leave school after dedicating the last four years of my life to it, and entering the unknown.

But even with the fear and excitement of the future, I can’t help but reminisce on my years at Fanshawe.

I feel like I got what I was supposed to get out of my college experience. I made friends that I hope I have for life, I learned, networked within my industry, and overall, I just had fun.

But can I just say: Fanshawe, please for the love of god, calm down with handing out parking tickets. I am paying over $3,000 a semester before parking and if I’m even a minute late I have a lovely $25 ticket waiting for me every freaking time. I hate that you can only pay by the hour. I don’t need a whole hour, I need 10 minutes. We are students, we are broke, we can barely afford parking in the first place, let alone a ticket for being 10 minutes late.

In essence, although improvements could always be made, I am excited to be able to call myself a Fanshawe alumni and I am beyond thankful for my time with the Interrobang.

I want to say a special thank you to Hannah Theodore, and Brandon Grubb. Thank you for reading and listening to my bad puns and my run-on sentences about my fairy books. I have had nothing but positive experiences working with you both.